Vogelberg was not the sculptor of
that great work. Even Crawford, than whom none ever possessed a more
rapid or facile hand, could never have accomplished half the immense
amount of work which pressed upon him in his later years, had he not had
more than one pair of hands to aid him in giving outward form to the
images in his fertile brain. Nay, not to refer solely to artists who are
no longer among us, I could name many studios, both in Rome and England,
belonging to our brothers in Art, in which the assistant-modeller forms
as necessary a part of studio-"property" as the living model or the
marble-workers,--and many more, on a smaller scale, in which he lends a
helping hand whenever required. If there are a few instances in which
the sculptor himself conducts his clay model through every stage, it is
usually because pecuniary considerations prevent his employing a
professional modeller.

I do not wish it to be supposed that Thorwaldsen's general practice was
such as I have described in the particular case referred to: probably no
artist ever studied or worked more carefully upon the clay model than
he. What I have stated was only with the view of showing to what extent
he felt himself justified in employing assistance. I am quite persuaded,
however, that, had Thorwaldsen and Vogelberg been women, and employed
one-half the amount of assistance they did in the cases mentioned, we
should long since have heard the great merit of their works attributed
to the skill of their workmen.

Nor should we forget--to draw for examples upon a kindred art--how
largely the painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries relied
upon the mechanical skill of their pupils to assist them in producing
the great works which bear their names. All the painters of note of that
time, like many of the present day, had their pupils, to whom was
intrusted much of the laborious portion of their work, the master
furnishing the design and superintending its execution. Raphael, for
instance, could never have left one half the treasures of Art which
adorn the Vatican and enrich other galleries, had he depended solely
upon the rapidity of his own hand; and of the many frescos which exist
in the Farnese Palace, and are called "Raphael's frescos," there are but
two in which are to be traced the master's hand,--the Galatea, and one
of the compartments in the series representing the story of Cupid and
Psyche.

It will thus be seen how large a portion of