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| GRECO-ROMAN STATUARY, DUBLIN. -fine array of statuary represented above graces the great hall of the National Gallery of Ireland, and is the most striking in that splendid collection of the classical creations of the Greco-Roman school of sculptors. The group on the left of the pictures is modeled after the original Grechetto marble, discovered in the ruins of the palace of Titus at Rome, A. D. 1506. The legend is that Laocoon, son of Priam, and priest of Apollo, had discovered and denounced the stratagem of the Greeks in inventing the mammoth wooden horse as a means of surreptitiously introducing a body of Grecian soldiers within the well defended walls of Troy. The gods, it would appear, were resolved that Troy should be taken and, therefore, grew angry at the intervention of Laocoon. Consequently they sent a plague of serpents to destroy him and his house. It will readily be seen by observing the group that the hero and his tow sons are having a death struggle with the reptiles. It is believed that the original group was the work of three Rhodian sculptors. That it is genuine in attested by the writings of Pliny, who beheld it in the palace of Titus at the beginning of the Christian era. Apart from a few restorations, the group remains as it was originally formed. The other statues shown in the sketch are a Diana, Jason, a Rondinini Faun, an Apollo and a Mercury. The recognized names of some of the statues vary. Lord Cloncuorry presented the Laocoon group to the gallery. |
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