Bacchante

No thoughtful patriot can fail to be interested in the conflict that is going on in Massachusetts over the Bacchante of the Boston Public Library. If the sculptor and the donor had been actuated by malice, and determined to throw into the classic shades of the library something in the nature of a Pandora's box, for the confusion of the culture of Massachusetts, they could not have succeeded better.

The New York Times, February 6, 1897, Wednesday, Page 6

This statue by Frederick MacMonnies scandalised Bostonians when it was first sculpted, and was not allowed to be placed in the courtyard for which it was comissioned. 100 years later we are no longer quite so prudish, and so it was finally placed where it belongs follwing the recent restoration of the courtyard.

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