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Updated: May 20, 2025
The windows in the vestibule do very little towards the illumination of the interior. At the extremity of the nave, which is raised on steps to form a choir, anciently stood the high altar, but this has been removed. Above, where it was can be discerned faintly through the obscurity, a bas-relief rudely sculptured, but very curious.
The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest.
Above the door, is a bas-relief, which is divided into three parts, representing the different circumstances of the sepulture of the Virgin, of her assumption and entrance into heaven. This porch is assuredly one of the most pure, light and perfect samples of gothic architecture. During the revolution, the church, of Saint-Ouen was converted into a smithy.
Symonds considers the first gate a supreme accomplishment in bronze casting, but criticizes the other, and usually more admired gate, as "overstepping the limits that separate sculpture from painting," by "massing together figures in multitudes at three and sometimes four distances. He tried to make a place in bas-relief for perspective."
We must here call attention to the importance of a bas-relief belonging to the curious series of carved pictures in which Sennacherib caused the erection of his palace at Nineveh to be commemorated. The buildings on the right have flat roofs, those on the left, and they seem the most important, have, some hemispherical cupolas, and some tall domes approaching cones in shape.
On the side of it, and just facing her as she lay reclining on the cushions, appeared a mural tablet, with a bas-relief in white marble, to the memory of two children, twins, who had lived and died at the same time, and in this prison children who had never breathed another air than that of captivity, their parents having passed many years within these walls, under confinement for debt.
The palace Giustiniani also had a gallery adorned with numerous valuable statues and works of sculpture; its principal ornaments were the celebrated statue of Minerva, the finest of that goddess now known, and the bas-relief of Amalthæa suckling Jupiter. These treasures were nominally bought by Napoleon, and are now in Paris. The paintings are chiefly in the possession of the king of Prussia.
The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest.
Writing further on of the ottoman couches, "causeuses," etc., the critic goes on to tell of an alteration in fashion which had evidently just taken place: "Some of them, in place of plain or carved rosewood or mahogany, are ornamented in white enamel, with classic subjects in bas-relief of perfect execution."
The grand front towards the west, facing Ludgate Hill, is approached by a double flight of steps from an area which contains a statue of Queen Anne. The portico is in two divisions, with Corinthian columns supporting the pediment, which bears a bas-relief of the conversion of St. Paul, and has a statue of St. Paul at the apex, with statues of St. Peter at the sides.
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