FINE WOOD CARVINGS.
Soma of the most beautiful specimens of sculptural designs, in bat- relief, that we have ever seen carved in wood, have been recently im- ported from the Netherlands, and are now exhibiting privately at the house of Mr. ROGERS, carver and gilder, Church Street, Soho. They con- sist of a set of eighteen oaken pannels, ornamented:with a series of Scrip., tural subjects, finely carved by BERGE, a Flemish carver of the last century; and originally formed the wainscotting of an apartment in the convent of Pare, near Brussels. They are quite unique—Jon sr of Bologna in oak They have all the feeling, breadth, freedom, and mastery of the Roman school ; not only as regards the grandeur of contour and flow of line, but in the grouping and the expression. There is so much gusto evinced in the treatment of the heads and the disposition of the draperies—such boldness of chiselling and truth of modelling—as we should have thought almost impossible in wood. They have none of that hard, dry, meagre character of the Gothic carving ; but, both in the details and the keep- ing of the whole, the master-hand of a great sculptor is visible. What renders these extraordinary specimens of wood-carving more curious is, that they should be of such recent date as the last century ; though that was perhaps the grand Lera of fine art in the Low Countries. These works are worthy to line the Chapter-house of St: Peter's, and would be fitting ornaments of one cif the Colleges, or of St. Paul's.
Previous page
