This handsome, not to say lavish, set of three hardback volumes is weighty in every sense. The present reviewer can only manage to carry physically one volume at a time. Its eye-watering price is thanks to the extraordinary density of encyclopaedic information, both textual and visual, as well as the high production values of the publication, typical of Brepols and Harvey Miller.
Many of us will own a well-thumbed copy of Haskell and Penny’s original edition of Taste and the Antique, first published in 1981. The much-expanded modern edition of 2024, consisting of three books, rather than one, begins with an introduction by Nicholas Penny. This was written only a few months ago, recording that he and the late Francis Haskell first came up with the notion of such a book some fifty years ago, in 1974. The reason for their project was to list those classical sculptures which would have been well-known to educated European art lovers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Venus de Milo or the Spinario are just two such iconic works. These statues or reliefs were endlessly copied and emulated by post-classical sculptors and painters. But by the dawn of the twentieth century the canon of much-loved classical works of art was being relegated to the sidelines.
In the introduction to the present book, Penny comments that ‘…the relics of a historical past … meant much more then than it does today’. Similarly, the study of classical literature lessened in importance as the twentieth century wore on. Additionally, reproductions were disdained: the influential Berlin museum director Wilhelm Bode (1845–1929) spurned plaster casts, a feeling he passed on to his protégé Wilhelm Valentiner (1880–1952), who became a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Valentiner’s ideas on reproductions induced other North American museums to abandon casts. Of course, some plaster casts were of medieval and renaissance sculptures, rather than classical sculptures. However, these replicas of more recent works of art were likewise frequently at best neglected by the late twentieth century; in some cases, they were sold off.1 Noble exceptions to this policy in North America include the Pittsburgh Museum of Art and the George William Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the UK the Victoria and Albert Museum has always retained and proudly displays plaster casts and electrotypes of post-classical art; sadly the classical casts formerly at South Kensington were de-accessioned in the early twentieth century.
Why would an individual or a library want to acquire this 2024 version of a book which has itself become a classic? What indeed can the reader enjoy here, not presented in 1981? Apart from the absorbing introduction newly written by Nicholas Penny for this very edition, the three volumes are divided as follows: the first and by far the most valuable in terms of text is Volume 1. Here we find all the engrossing chapters comprising Haskell and Penny’s original introduction, with minor corrections and additions. These chapters are followed by critically expanded entries on each of the 95 classical sculptures that Haskell and Penny first selected as forming the canon for Grand Tourists, artists and connoisseurs. The extra or significantly extended sections within these entries comprise more information on the reception of these sculptures, notes on restorations, and updated bibliographies. Furthermore, the widespread bibliography of well over one hundred pages (in double columns) provides an invaluable series of books and articles for reference. We then have an excellent index to the book, a comprehensive listing of around one thousand names, places and works of art mentioned.
The second and third volumes are composed of many hundreds of illustrations. Volume 2 is a generous series of over five hundred plates illustrating the original sculptures, beautifully exploring them from different angles, their surfaces and condition shown with great care and attention. Volume 3 is an erudite and utterly fascinating assemblage of more than eight hundred illustrations of replicas and adaptations from the eighteenth century to the present. Those inspired by the Callipygian Venus for instance range from Lord Leighton to Rowlandson to a still from Citizen Kane.
It is difficult to do justice to such a scholarly publication which is also a supreme visual feast. Adriano Aymonino and Eloisa Dodero are to be warmly congratulated on such a triumphant achievement. This publication could be said to epitomise in print form what the text discusses in terms of classical sculpture: a reproduction and adaptation of an earlier creation (the classic edition of 1981). It is fundamentally a work of reference but will also be an enormously enjoyable read for any art historian or art connoisseur. Unfortunately, not currently available in digital form, its bulk and high cost will be deterrents for some. We can but hope that every serious library will add it to their collection.
Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900. Revised and amplified by Adriano Aymonino and Eloisa Dodero. 3 vols. Harvey Miller/Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, 2024.
Hardback. Vol. 1: xxi plus pp. 703 with 66 colour illustrations, 95 b&w illustrations; Vol. 2: pp. 547 with about 550 colour illustrations; Vol. 3: pp.420 with about 800 colour illustrations.
ISBN 978-1-909400-25-2 (SET).
395 euros.
