almost impossible to obtain a picture of "old king Gösta" that was national and true to history. Larchevêque's great- est distinction consists in having been the teacher of Sergel, and, in 1758, when but a youth of eighteen, Sergel was allowed to accompany his instructor to Paris. There, with- out a doubt, he received strong impressions from Falconet and Pigalle, the great French rococo sculptors, whose grace and sensuous elegance were bound to exert an influence upon the precocious young Swede. In 1767 Sergel went to Rome and remained there until 1778. There the greatness of antiquity was revealed to him partly by means of the previ- ously mentioned scholarly currents in art. The Faun, statuette in marble by Johan Tobias Sergel. In the National Museum at Stockholm In the year 1770 The Reclining Faun was finished. The figure attracted general attention by its joyousness and stamp of energy. Notwithstanding its small size--not quite a meter in length--it produces a very striking effect through its animation and its pagan, exuberant joy of life. There are -107- |