"The fairy palace of civilization may be turned into a gray stone on a barren moor"
Autograph letter signed.
8vo. 4 pp. on bifolium.
€ 450.00
To the German archaeologist Theodor Panofka about Panofka's dissertation on Greek vases, and on the vase collection of the British Museum he himself has been studying, expressing anxiety about the future and pessimism about the state of scholarship in England: "Allow me to thank you for your dissertation on the artists of Greek vases [...] To me it is at this moment a valuable aid as I am at the history of the Greek fictile art. Our Museum is now very rich in vases bearing the names of artists [...] My time has lately been so taken up with my accumulating duties that I have had no time to write any memoir as I had intended on some of our vases [...] We are unfortunately in England so ill provided with Journals and what is worse with time. It is a sad drawback to studies to be one of two millions of people agglomerated on a narrow spot. I hope you will not depend, and that your tranquillity in Germany will be restored. For my part however I confess that I look with secret misgivings at the march of human events. The fairy palace of civilization may be turned into a gray stone on a barren moor, and I feel no assurance that Europe will not and speedily experience those disasters which marked the agonizing close of the Roman Empire".
He concludes with forthcoming scientific publications, namely Panofka's "Manners and Customs of the Greeks" (originally published in German as "Griechinnen und Griechen") and his own catalogue of vases of the British Museum: "Mr. Newton has been working with me lately at the vases, and what will please you still better had carried tho [!] the press [...] your Griechen und Griechinnen. It comes out in a much elegant style - quite a companion for the Boudoir. My catalogue of the Vases in the British Museum is coming out [...] something in style between Gerhards [i. e. Eduard Gerhard] catalogue of Berlin Vases and De Witte [i. e. Jean de Witte], Catalogue des Vases de M. Durand [...]".
