How does Elgin Marbles elucidate its Contemporary reaction?
When, in 1807, Elgin put the first shipment of marbles on display in London they were "an instant success among many" who admired the sculptures and supported their arrival. The sculptor John Flaxman thought them superior to "the treasures of Italy", and Benjamin West called them "sublime specimens of the purest sculpture". Henry Fuseli was enthusiastic, and his friend Benjamin Haydon became a tireless advocate for their importance. Classicist Richard Payne Knight, however, declared they were Roman additions or the work of inferior craftsmen, and painter Ozias Humphrey called them "a mass of ruins".Lord Byron strongly objected to the removal of the marbles from Greece, denouncing Elgin as a vandal. In his narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published in 1812, he wrote in relation to the Parthenon:
Byron was not the only one to protest against the removal at the time. Sir John Newport said:The Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most unjustifiable means and has committed the most flagrant pillages. It was, it seems, fatal that a representative of our country loot those objects that the Turks and other barbarians had considered sacred.Edward Daniel Clarke witnessed the removal of the metopes and called the action a "spoliation", writing that "thus the form of the temple has sustained a greater injury than it had already experienced from the Venetian artillery", and that "neither was there a workman employed in the undertaking ... who did not express his concern that such havoc should be deemed necessary, after moulds and casts had been already made of all the sculpture which it was designed to remove." When Sir Francis Ronalds visited Athens and Giovanni Battista Lusieri in 1820, he wrote that "If Lord Elgin had possessed real taste in lieu of a covetous spirit he would have done just the reverse of what he has, he would have removed the rubbish and left the antiquities."In 1810, Elgin published a defence of his actions, in which he argued that he had only decided to remove the marbles when he realised that they were not being cared for by Ottoman officials and were in danger of falling into the hands of Napoleon's army.Elgin began negotiations for the sale of the collection to the British Museum in 1811, but talks failed when the government offered only £30,000; less than half of his expenses relating to them. The following years marked an increased interest in classical Greece, and Elgin procured testimonials from Ennio Quirino Visconti, director of the Louvre, and Antonio Canova of the Vatican Museum, who affirmed the high artistic value of the marbles.In 1816, a House of Commons Select Committee found that they were of high artistic value and recommended that the government purchase them for £35,000 to further the cultivation of the fine arts in Britain. In June 1816, after further debate, parliament approved the purchase of the marbles by a vote of 82–30.Felicia Hemans supported the purchase of the marbles and in her Modern Greece: A Poem (1817), defied Byron with the question:and quoted Haydon and other defenders of their accessibility in her notes.Goethe thought the British government's decision to buy the marbles would herald "a new age of great art". The marbles went on public display in a temporary room of the British Museum in 1817 and soon broke attendance records for the museum. John Keats visited the British Museum in 1817, recording his feelings in the sonnet titled "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles". Some lines of his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" are also thought to have been inspired by his visit to the Elgin Marbles. William Wordsworth also viewed the marbles and commented favourably on their aesthetics in a letter to Haydon.The marbles were later displayed in the specially constructed Elgin Saloon (1832) and became the preferred models for academic training in fine arts. Plaster casts of the marbles were in high demand and were distributed to museums, private collectors and heads of state throughout the world. They were moved to the Duveen Gallery, named after Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen, in 1939 where they continued to attract record attendances.
Napoleon Benjamin Haydon lime Sir John Newport British government Richard Payne Knight John Keats British Museum Felicia Hemans William Wordsworth Childe Harold's Pilgrimage metope marble Francis Ronalds Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen John Flaxman Ennio Quirino Visconti Parthenon Goethe Ozias Humphrey sonnet Henry Fuseli metopes Lord Byron Giovanni Battista Lusieri Edward Daniel Clarke Athens London Marble Antonio Canova Greece Venetian