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THE TEMPLE OF THESEUS

Artist: Wolfensberger ____________ Engraver: A. Le Petit

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Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving

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PRINT DATE : This engraving was printed in 1841; it is not a modern reproduction in any way.

PRINT SIZE : Overall print size is 7 1/2 inches by 10 inches including white borders which are not shown in the scan above, the actual scene is 5 inches by 7 1/2 inches.

PRINT CONDITION : Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock paper.

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FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION : "Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm,

All tinged with varied hues, arrests the eye,

And dull were his, that past both heedless by."

With the history or mythology of Theseus, the recorded annals of Athens, as a well regulated political community, may perhaps with propriety be said to commence. It is obvious to the reflecting scholar, that the story of his life, to which the Athenians with so much vanity appeal, is altogether allegorical. His destinies afford an occasion for eulogizing military valour; the code of jurisprudence which he is believed to have digested, forms a pretext for applauding the quality of justice, his kindred with Daedalus implies the love and patronage of the arts; Patriotism is praised, in detailing his Cretan expedition; and, when Pirithous is introduced, it is for the purpose of holding up inviolable friendship as an object of universal admiration. But Jupiter himself did not exhibit to mankind aperfect moral example; it would have been inconsistent, tfore, with the doctrine of pagan deification, that a hero should have been represented as immaculate. The same people, tfore, who point to the reign of Theseus as one of political justice, as one of public wisdom, which the very name Athens, the gift of Thes'eus, plainly indicates, do not deny that their second founder laboured under the failings of humanity. And this concession is made, not to detract from a fame which is still superior to that of all other Grecian princes, but, in the same strain and spirit of allegory, to condemn vice and repudiate immorality. When, tfore, Theseus had the cruelty and. ingratitude to desert his benefactress Ariadne, on a solitary island, the generous-hearted Bacchus comes to her relief, and suffering innocence receives protection: but, when Theseus, was himself sent into exile, he is not released, but permitted, as a punishment for his enormities, to pine and perish in the land of the stranger. Whether, tfore, Theseus be a real character in Attic history, or an allegorized picture of the early state of the Athenian people, the conclusion that virtue was an object of admiration, and vice of odium, appears to rest on solid foundations. Chastised for the crime of ingratitude, his countrymen reflected on his virtues and his services, and, finding that they preponderated much beyond his errors, repented of their own cruelty and ingratitude, sent to Scyros for their princess bones, and, conveying them, with all the honour due to royalty, to his native city, erected over them the splendid structure that still survives, " as his temple and his tomb."

This fabric, in which the most enduring stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship, the characteristics of the Doric style, whose chaste beauty is not, in the opinion of the first artists, to be equalled by the graces of any of the other Orders, was commenced in the year B.C. 476, just four years after the battle of Sal...

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