nther (Fig. 117).

Dannecker had a delicate feeling for nature; his figures were light and
graceful, and his heads were noble in expression. He labored eight years
upon a figure of Christ, which belongs to the Emperor of Russia; in
Stuttgart a nymph pouring water on Neckar Street and two nymphs on a
reservoir in the palace garden show his fine taste in architectural
sculpture. Among his other works are a statue of Alexander, a monument
to Count Zeppelin, a Cupid, and a Maiden lamenting a Dead Bird. Some of
his works are among the very best productions of modern sculpture; his
portraits are noble and true to nature; the works named here are by no
means all that he did, and we should add that his efforts in religious
subjects exhibit a pure sense of the beautiful, and a true conception of
Christian ideas.

[Illustration: FIG. 117.--ARIADNE AND THE PANTHER. _By Dannecker._]

We come now, for the first time, to a great English sculptor. JOHN
FLAXMAN (1755-1826) was born in York, but while he was still an infant
his father removed to London, where he kept a plaster-cast shop. The boy
began to draw and even to model very early; when but five years old he
kept some soft wax, with which he could take an impression from any seal
or ring or coin which pleased him. He was very delicate in health, and
was once thought to be dead, and was prepared for burial, when animation
returned; his parents tried to gratify all his wishes, and while a child
he modelled a great number of figures in wax, clay, and plaster.

By the time he was ten years old he was much stronger, and was able to
use the activity which corresponded to his enthusiastic feeling and
imagination. About this time he read "Don Quixote," and was so moved by
the adventures of that hero that he went out early one morning armed
with a toy sword and bent upon protecting some forlorn damsel; he went
to Hyde Park and wandered about all day, not finding any one who was in
need of his services. At night he returned home, very hungry and weary,
to find his family in great alarm over his unusual absence.

He now spent all his time in drawing and modelling, and never had more
than two lessons from a master; at eleven years of age he began to gain
various prizes, and at fourteen was admitted to study at the Royal
Academy, and gained the silver medal there that same year. About this
time he made some friends who aided him to study the classics and to
learn more of history, all of w