Evening star., 1926-04-25
Noted Classical Archeologist Names
Worlds Greatest Six Art Treasures

10 refuse an appropriation to buy
this indispensable treasure. When
Lord Elgin left Greece in 1903 he
shipped 200 cases filled with sculp.
lures from the Erechtheum, the
Parthenon and the Temple of Nike.
But until archeologists and artists
| from all over the continent came
flocking to London. England wasn't
| interested in them. When Parliament
| did finally agree to buy the frieze,
| the amount it paid wasn't enough to
reimburse Lord Elgin for the expense
of packing and eXpressage. Now the
British government wouldn't part
with it for all the money in the Bank
of England.
! The next treasure that the world
couldn't do without is the Hermes of
PraXiteles. 1t stands in a little mu-
| scum in Olympia. not far from the
| spot where it was dug up less than
| 80 years ago.
Then there is the Venus of Milo
that lovely anonymously made lady
| who was found by the shovel of a
vineyardist on the Greek Island of
Melos. No doubt 500 years from now
learned men will still be going to the
Louvre in Paris to determine the
! burning question of what the goddess
was holding in her hands. Women
| have held strange things in their
hands during the history Of the world,
but none of them has aroused the
curiosity and speculation that has
been directed toward the marble lady
of Melos."
| Another of the six greatest treas
ures named by DR.. Hirsch Is the
archaic Persephone. for which the
Berlin museum recently paid 100000.
| Unlike Venus of Milo this young
woman Is not conventionaily beauti-
full. Her hair is arranged in the regu-
lar scallops of a crocheted shawl, her
gown falls around her with all the
flowing grace of mail chute. and her
firm grasp on the fatal pomegranate
suggests that she is about to press the
ruby juice into a cocktail shaker. In
| fact. our purely lay reaction was that
Pluto was wise to carry her off to his
Kingdom of darkness. She undoubt-
edly looked best in unrelieved night.
| But, explains DR.. Hirsch, it is not by
grace of her egglike eyes or her vii
age idiot smile that Persephone is
| lifted to her high place among the six
| art wonders of the ancient world.> She
| Is important because she is the lineal
grandmother of all the marble Aphro-
dltes that ever rose out of ocean foam.
She Is the prolific ancestress of the
| many D1anaS who do their hunting in
the great museums of the world, as
| we'll as of the Athenas who had an in
, convenient habit of breaking out of
the head of Zeus. She Is, in fact, one
of the first verses in the genesis of
Greek sculpture and probably, says
| DR.. HirSch, the earliest marble statue
in the world.
while the man who chiseled ont
! venus OF Milo was undoubtedly a
master artist, he profited by the craft
or the hundreds Of craftsmen who had
gone before him." the archeologist
said. THE world was full of beauti-
full marble women for him to study
] and compare. The man who made the
Persephone, however, was working
alone. cutting out his way in q new
medium, with nothing to guide him but
his own hand and mind. Considering
that every bolw Of the chisel was the
stroke OF pioneer, he produced q far
greater work comparatively than did
the artist who created Venus de Milo.
We must have her in our six because
she Is the beginning, and we must
know the beginning II we are to
understand and appreciate the rest"
The precious list Of six likewise in.
cluded the seated Hera, from the Island
Of Samos. q statue 50 highly valued
that the Berlin Museum paid $400, 900
for It during the darkest and neediest
days of the war. Hera is significant
largely because she was the last fine
work produced in Greece during the
archaic period-because her marble
body formed a bridge between the
str1.s1- & U. ,hc EGyp-..;h influence