In the evidence given before a committee of the House of Commons upon the Elgin collection of marbles, previous to the purchase of them by the nation, Richard Payne Knight and William Wilkins gave it as their opinion that these works were not by Phidias, and that he was not a worker in marble. This statement has been rejected by the author of the work on the Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, as entirely without foundation. In this conclusion it must be admitted that he follows the opinion generally entertained at the present day, and repeated by nearly every modern writer. Visconti, to whom he refers as refuting satisfactorily the notion of Knight and Wilkins, thus argues the question: “If it were imagined that Phidias devoted himself to the toreutic art, and that he employed in his works only ivory and metals, this opinion would be confuted by Aristotle, who distinguishes this great artist by the appellation of σοφὸς λιθουργός—a skillful sculptor in marble—in opposition to Polyclitus, whom he styles simply a statuary, ἀνδριαντοποιός, since the latter scarcely ever employed his talents except in bronze. In fact, several marble statues of Phidias were known to Pliny, who might even have seen some of them at Rome, since they had been removed to this city; and the most famous work of Alcamenes, the Venus of the Gardens, had only, as it was said, acquired so high a degree of perfection because Phidias, his master, had himself taken pleasure in finishing with his own hand his beautiful statue in marble.”