CHAP. 44.—WHO WAS THE FIRST TO MOULD FIGURES IN IMITATION OF THE FEATURES OF LIVING PERSONS, OR OF STATUES.
The first person who expressed the human features by fitting a mould of plaster upon the face, and then improving it by pouring melted wax into the cast, was Lysistratus2197 of Sicyon, brother of Lysippus, already mentioned. It was he, in fact, who first made it his study to give a faithful likeness; for before his time, artists only thought how to make their portraits as handsome as possible. The same artist, too, was the first who thought of making models for his statues; a method which afterwards became so universally adopted, that there could be neither figure nor statue made without its model in clay. Hence it would appear, that the art of modelling in clay is more ancient than that of moulding in bronze.2198