I had heard so much of this statue, that my curiosity was strongly excited. A part of its fame may be owing to its situation, and the number of travellers who go to visit Bethmann's Museum, as a matter of course. I used to observe that all travellers, who were on the road to Italy, praised it, and all who were on their way home criticised it. As I ascended the steps of the pavilion in which it is placed, the enthusiasm of expectation faded away from my mind: I said to myself, "I shall be disappointed!"--Yet I was not disappointed.
The Ariadne occupied the centre of a cabinet, hung with a dark grey colour, and illuminated by a high lateral window, so that the light and shade, and the relief of the figure, were perfectly well managed and effective. Dannecker has not represented Ariadne in her more poetical and picturesque character, as, when betrayed and forsaken by Theseus, she stood alone on the wild shore of Naxos, "her hair blown by the winds, and all about her expressing desolation." It is Ariadne, immortal and triumphant, as the bride of Bacchus. The figure is larger than life. She is seated, or rather reclined, on the back of a panther. The right arm is carelessly extended: the left arm rests on the head of the animal, and the hand supports the drapery, which appears to have just dropped from her limbs. The head is turned a little upwards, as if she already anticipated her starry home; and her tresses are braided with the vine leaves. The grace and ease of the attitude, so firm, and yet so light; the flowing beauty of the form, and the position of the head, enchanted me. Perhaps the features are not sufficiently _Greek_: for, though I am not one of those who think all beauty comprised in the antique models, and that nothing can be orthodox but the straight nose and short upper lip, still to Ariadne the pure _classical_ ideal of beauty, both in form and face, are properly in character. A cast from that divine head, the Greek Ariadne, is placed in the same cabinet, and I confess to you, that the contrast being immediately brought before the eye, Dannecker's Ariadne seemed to want refinement, in comparison. It is true, that the moment chosen by the German sculptor required an expression altogether different. In the Greek bust, though already circled by the viny crown, and though all heaven seems to repose on the noble arch of that expanded brow, yet the head is declined, and a tender melancholy lingers round the all-perfect mouth, as if the remembrance of a mortal love--a mortal sorrow--yet shaded her celestial bridal hours, and made pale her immortality. But, Dannecker's Ariadne is the flushed queen of the Bacchante, and, in the clash of the cymbals and the mantling cup, she has already forgotten Theseus. There is a look of life, an individual truth in the beauty of the form, which distinguishes it from the long-limbed vapid pieces of elegance called nymphs and Venuses, which