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| Jost Amman The Sculptor 1568 woodcut book-illustration British Museum |
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| Jan van Vliet Sculptor in Studio 1635 etching, engraving British Museum |
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| Abraham Bosse Sculptor in Studio 1642 etching British Museum |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Abraham Bosse Sculptor in Studio (reversed and partial copy of the print directly above) ca. 1642-52 etching British Museum |
Venus
So wide a sea you came from, your cold form
Has wanted out of reason to be warm,
So close a shell, your iridescent side
Is as incontinent as the earth is wide.
– Witter Bynner (1938)
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| Giuseppe Maria Mitelli Young Painter and Sculptor in Studio 1675 etching British Museum |
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| Anthonie de Winter after Caspar and Jan Luyken Sculptor in Studio 1695 engraving British Museum |
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| A.J. Defehrt after Jean-Baptiste Oudry Sculptor gazing with amazement at his statue of Jupiter (cast of Belvedere Torso in background) ca. 1755-59 etching, engraving British Museum |
from Before a Statue of Achilles
I gaze on thee as Phidias of old
Or Polyclitus gazed, when first he saw
These hard and shining limbs, without a flaw.
And cast his wonder in heroic mould.
Unhappy me who only may behold,
Nor make immutable and fix in awe
A fair immortal form no worm shall gnaw,
A tempered mind whose faith was never told!
The godlike mien, the lion's lock and eye,
The well-knit sinew, utter a brave heart
Better than many words that part by part
Spell in strange symbols what serene and whole
In nature lives, nor can in marble die.
The perfect body itself the soul.
– George Santayana (1897)
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| Charles Townley (collector) Intaglio of Ancient Sculptor carving double-headed Terminal Figure ca. 1768-1805 wash drawing British Museum |
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| Thomas Rowlandson Modern Pygmalion with Statue of Galatea come to life ca. 1790-1810 etching British Museum |
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| Benjamin Roubaud Caricature of sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye at work 1839 lithograph from Le Charivari British Museum |
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| Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet Skeleton Sculptors ca. 1853-68 lithograph British Museum |
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| Édouard Castan after Alexandre Cabanel Michelangelo seated in his studio, Pope Julius entering 1859 mixed media British Museum |
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| Alfred Thompson The Royal Studio - The Princess Louise at Home (carving a bust of her mother, Queen Victoria) ca. 1871-80 wood-engraving from The Mask British Museum |
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| Ferdinand Schmutzer Sculptor Charles Korschmann in Studio 1900 etching, drypoint British Museum |
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| Eugène Carrière Rodin sculpting a figure 1900 lithograph British Museum |
Epitaph for a Certain Sculptor
For him, a priest stern at the sacrifice,
There have been piled more offerings than we guess.
Ripe fruit, and flowers dewy with loveliness,
And slaughtered lambs, and manuscripts of price,
And wine, and fans whereon a queen's device
Was carven, fed the sacrificial flame;
Else had it leaped less high. Useless to blame
The fire no cheaper fuel could half suffice.
And useless now to blame him; he is dead;
He held a faith whose Savior late had gone
Back to some Heaven; he struggled on alone,
A priest at altars whence the god had fled;
Not happy till his own cold heart had shed
Its last drop, too, on the sacrificial stone.
– Arthur Davison Ficke (1923)
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)