WorkThis cast of an acanthus boss is one of ten examples of sculpture from St Mark's that Ruskin described as 'pure thirteenth-century of rarest chiselling' (
Works, 24, pp. 286-291). For Ruskin, the acanthus bosses were 'the most instructive pieces of sculpture' in the Museum.
It is interesting to compare the detail preserved in Ruskin's cast with the damaged surface of the same boss as seen today on the outer archivolt of the central door of St Mark's.
Ruskin on BossesEnlarging on the significance of ornamented bosses in
Lectures on Architecture and Painting (1853), Ruskin asks his reader to 'Imagine the effect on the minds of your children [...if] every boss on your buildings were, according to the workman's best ability, a faithful rendering of the form of some existing animal, so that all their walls were so many pages of natural history' (
Works, 12, p. 66).