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ANTIQUE STATUES. I97
in so much the stronger light, the likeness of Antinous
appears, certainly in one, the author thinks in two, places.
This confutes the supposition still entertained by one
and another, that the reliefs belong to Trajan’s time, as
that emperor is the hero of the majority of those. They
are probably from the last years of Hadrian’s life.
A few words now, concerning the Antinous type.
The somewhat broad head, with its waves of luxuriant
curls, has an arch that has often been thought the pecu-
liar property of men with great sensibility, imagination
and attraction towards the ideal. The forehead, in great
part hidden by the falling curls, has a mighty breadth.
It is the brow of presentiment and of rather the receptive,
than the independently productive, power of thought ;
but the brow of resolution, also. The eyebrows are
marked on all the statues that the author has seen : they
lie close to the hollow of the eye, and have the form in
which Lavater would read modesty and simplicity. The
profile is Hellenic, but with nature’s variation from the
type : the nose does not lie in exactly the same line with
the forehead. Straight, and nobly formed, it has the
same broad bridge as that of the Ludovisi Hera, but at
the same time something childlike in its blunt roundinsf.
The eyes, large and deeply sunken, dream, beneath the
finely marked lines of the eyelashes. The iris and pupil
are wanting only in the figure of Antinous in the San
Ildefonso group. The distance between the nose and
mouth is unusually small. The lips are full and lightly
closed. The chin keeps something of the child. So, too
the cheeks. The last named features are especially those
that by their formation, at once refined and full, give the
face in its entirety the expression of childishness and
innocence.
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