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ANTIQUE STATUES. 1/3
by Count De Vogu^, since Aicard’s book came out. This
is the letter that Louis Brest, immediately after the dis-
covery of the statue, sent to the consul general at Smyrna,
P. David. We read in this letter that " the arms of the
statue are broken ’’
{les bras de la statue sont casstfs,) but
that in the niche where it stood, were found, among
other fragments, a piece of an arm, and " a mutilated
hand, holding an apple." It must be noted, that Brest
wrote this letter several weeks before the monk Oikono-
mos laid hands upon the work of art. With this, the
dispute seems settled. It is in any case of but minor
consequence. The main question is. whether the frag-
ments mentioned, the bit of arm and the hand with the
apple, originally belonged to the statue. And among
the leading judges of art and investigators, there is hardly
more than one opinion on this point : that such was not
the case. This view is strengthened by the very latest
investigations, undertaken by Ravaisson and laid, last
June, before the Acade’mie des Inscriptions. Ravaisson
exhibited the piece of arm and the hand before the
academy, and set forth a number of reasons why it must
be conjectured that they did not originally belong to the
statue, but date from an alteration, which however had
already been made in the antique time.
That such an alteration had been made, is proved
also by the condition in which Debay found the pedestal.
One of the blocks of marble of which the support was
made, fitted into the other exactly, and yet was of differ-
ent marble. It must therefore have been put in at a later
period. On this newer piece, the inscription was to be
read, according to which \_Alex\ andros, Menides son from
Antioch on the Meander, made the work. The form of the
letters points to the beginning of the Roman imperial
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