AN APOLOGY FOR THE COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT IN THE CRYSTAL PALACE. BY OWEN JONES. [Illustration] CRYSTAL PALACE LIBRARY; AND BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON. 1854. BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS TO THE CRYSTAL PALACE COMPANY, WHITEFRIARS. AN APOLOGY FOR THE COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT. BY OWEN JONES. WITH ARGUMENTS BY G. H. LEWES AND W. WATKISS LLOYD, AN EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO EXAMINE THE ELGIN MARBLES IN 1836, FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS, AND A FRAGMENT ON THE ORIGIN OF POLYCHROMY, BY PROFESSOR SEMPER. AN APOLOGY FOR THE COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT. The coloured or colourless state of the monuments of the Greeks, and more particularly of their monumental sculpture, has long been a subject of discussion in the world of art; a discussion which, although it may have been carried on with too much faith on the one side, has certainly been accompanied, on the other, with too much prejudice. At a very early stage in the arrangements for forming in the Crystal Palace a series of reproductions of architectural monuments, I felt that to colour a Greek monument would be one of the most interesting problems I could undertake; not indeed in the hope that I might be able completely to solve it, but that I might, at least, by the experiment remove the prejudices of many. I felt persuaded that when we had a Greek monument placed side by side with reproductions of other coloured monuments, the authorities for which were indisputable, people would be more willing to recognise the necessity for believing that the monuments of Greece were no exceptions to those of civilisations which preceded or followed them, but that they also like the rest were coloured in every part, and covered with a most elaborate system of ornamentation.