Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1914-01-06
THE AMARANTHINE VASE
BY 9. W. cURRlE.

er who lived In Corinth moulded a
vase lie carried the vase to Thebes,
IA which city the great painter Ap-
Deles was then sojourning. and there
upon induced him to paint upon the
s~so the portrait of a woman, the
most beautiful in all Greece. The pot
ter returned to Corinth and cast his
vase in a seething furnace, whence 1t
came forth virtually imperishable, a
masterpiece Of classic pottery. The
pottcr believed that the painting of
Appeles would never fade and he
called 1t The Amaranthine Vase"
For several months the potter ex.
libited his vase in his shop. One day
q great noble came to the potter and
offered a sum that meant wealth Ind
Happiness for all his days. The vase
was sold
In the year LAG B. c., the Roman
Consul Mummius, at the head Of his
| legions, entered Corinth. After put
| ting the men to death and selling the
women and children into slavery he
| plundered the city of its precious
treasures-among them the vase For
many years this gem of the potters
art remained in Rome and was shown
in the palaces of successive emperors.
Finally the vase fell into the hands
of the family Of the Medici and after
several centuries was removed to
Paris, where 1t took its place among
the treasures Of the Louvre In the
reign of Louis XIV. it was stolen from
the palace and sold to an ignorant
dealer in bric-a-brac. Bought by an
English nobleman it crossed the chan
mel and proved the delight Of several
generations of ceramic hunters.
George Chalmers was a struggling
young artist. His struggle was not
only for home and to gain the young
girl he loved as his wife, but for the
bare necessities of life. One evening
as he was going to his studio-the gar
ret of one of the better sort of tene-
ments on the east side of New York
he was attracted by notice advertis-
ing the sale of artists materials,
which appeared in the sooty window
of dingy junk shop. He went inside,
and while overhauling lot of brushes
and paints his eye fell on a startling
bit of coloring that cleaned from a
pile of bric-a-brac in one corner of the
shop. Going over to the nondescript
heap of. rubbish he leaned down and
saw a face about the size Of a silver
dollar enameled on the surface of a
vase.
A tremor went through the young
artists frame; his eyes grew wide
with amazement. Surely that was
the work of great master!" With a
trembling hand he reached down into
the heap of rubbish and, exercising all
the care he could, he disengaged it
from the mass of broken china and
chips of iron and brought it out into
the light. He trembled all over as the
conviction seized him that he had dis
covered a treasure Of enormous value.
A sharp bargain with the owner and
: he hurried out into the street and was
soon in his shabby little studio. Dis
placing a bust of the Venus de Milo,
which had occupied a bracket on the
wall, he carefully busted off his vase
and gave it the most commanding
place in his studio.
Long into the night he sat before
the vase and studied the transcendent-
ally beautiful coloring of the face.
The following day found the young
artist working away with all the en-
thusiasm of genius. Day followed day
| -NfI ha oil inc
man stuck to his canvas. What he
had eaten for week would not have
made a hearty meal. In an hours
time he would have given the finish
ing touches to his work of art
He did not hear the heavy creak Of
advancing footsteps on the stairs, nor
did he see the three rough-looking
men and the landlord advance into the
room. The landlord spoke and bran
dished a paper in his hands. The
young man was oblivious-his dream
had deadened all his senses.
One of the men stepped forward,
and, raising his arm with a mocking
laugh, dashed the vase-model from its
bracket, sending it crashing in thou
sand pieces to the floor. Gerge Chal-
mers woke to the present. He looked
at his vase, an impossible broken
mass on the rough board floor. He
looked at the landlord and the two
men. and his eyes shone with the
grief that comes with broken heart.
He closed his eyes and sank back in
his chair
On the following day the name
George Chalmers" appeared on one
of the sudden death slips to become
part of the dry, voluminous records Of
the cGroner's Office