Pairs of sculptures collected by James Ricau

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1997 by H. Nichols B. Clark

Some statues conceived as pairs by their creator were never owned together during the sculptor's lifetime. From the outset Rinehart saw Hero [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VI OMITTED] and Leander [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE V OMITTED] as the pair they were in classical mythology. Hero, a beautiful priestess of Venus, met Leander at a festival of Venus and Adonis in Sestos on the coast of Thrace. Their instant passion was thwarted by Hero's position as a priestess, her parents' opposition to Leander, and by the fact that she lived on the western, or European, shore of the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles), and Leander lived on the eastern, or Asiatic, shore. Each evening Leander swam across the Hellespont to be with his beloved, guided by the lamp she set out for him. One stormy winter evening the wind blew out the lamp, and Leander, losing his way, drowned. Inconsolable, Hero threw herself into the Hellespont to join him in death.

Hero was well enough along for a visitor to Rinehart's studio late in 1858 or early in 1859 to comment on "a statue of Hero waiting for Leander."(23) She is shown sitting on a rock, gazing intently into the distance. The burning lamp beside her and the waves lapping at the base of the rock heighten the drama of the moment.

The most compelling contemporary model for Hero would have been Ariadne auf dem Panther (Ariadne on the Panther) of 1803-1814 by Johann Heinrich von Dannecker (1758-1841). Housed in a private museum in Frankfurt, Germany, it was a required stop for nearly all Americans making the European tour.(24) In addition to the many modern sources available to him, Rinehart displayed a strong sensitivity to Hellenistic sculpture in rendering Hero. In so doing, he achieved a lively balance between the modern and the antique. Undoubtedly its chaste refinement and narrative content contributed to making Hero one of the sculptors most popular works.

The nude male was far less common in nineteenth-century American sculpture than the nude female. Rinehart's Leander was well received as early as 1860 although no replicas were ordered until Edward Clark of New York City requested a copy in 1865.(25) Despite the absence of other orders for Leander, Rinehart had one more replica of it carved in marble, which was near completion in September 1870.

Leander is shown at the edge of the shore, which is lapped by waves, gazing almost apprehensively into the distance. Rinehart drew on both Hellenistic and Renaissance models for his figure. The closest antecedent is a copy of what he called Hermes Belvedere, in the Vatican Museum in Rome.(26) Rinehart has subtly shifted the location of each arm and repositioned the left leg, achieving a more open stance that relates the figure to Michelangelo's David (1501-1504), which Rinehart knew from his stay in Florence between 1855 and 1857. Despite this second debt, the smooth surfaces, gentle transitions, attenuated proportions, and graceful pose of Leander are very close to the Vatican Museum statue, the original of which may have been the work of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles.