Note 49 — Chapter IV · ToC
Reading edition
Leighton gave this group to Watts, who expressed to me an unbounded admiration for it. "Nothing more beautiful has ever been done! Pheidias never did anything better. I believe it was better even than Pheidias!" were the words Watts used when deploring the fact that he had lent it to a sculptor to be cast—something had gone wrong in the process of casting, and it had been destroyed. When giving me the modelled sketch for the "Python," Watts said, "I am giving you the most beautiful thing I have in my place."