"When I Hear The Word Renaissance I Rearch ... "

[Click on images for enlargements.]

San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, Restored 2011.

"The weeping figures surrounding the boxes on the colonnade were the work of the sculptor Ulric Ellerhusen. Some say they were intended to express Contemplation; others, the melancholy of life without art. These lachrymose ladies were to have been partially shrouded by vines watered by their tears, but funds were insufficient to provide all the greenery that Bernard Maybeck had wanted. Therefore the boxes at the top of the columns were never planted. Nor were the redwood trees which were to have surrounded the Palace, to add to the romantic atmosphere."

Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1900-1949 (Google Books)

Photo credits: (c) Liz Hafalia for San Francisco Chronicle 2011. Copyright controlled.