Small-scale bronze sculpture is one of the many kinds of visual art that artists and their public have consistently regarded as marginal specialities. Ordinarily consisting of a figure somewhere from ten to eighteen inches high—though the figure is a bit less the dominant form here than in traditional sculpture as a whole—it has tacitly been treated as a subject of minor interest, a passion for the few. Large collections of superior examples are found only in a few places, notably the Bargello in Florence and the Louvre. Another is Vienna, and it is thus an unusual occasion for us to be able to see seventy-five of the finer such sculptures from the Vienna Museum on a tour of Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles.[1]A minor, yet powerful reason for the “obscurity” of this art is that it is literally too dark to see well. Typically dark brown or near black, the works are filled with active modeling detail, and reflections off the shiny surfaces add problems, especially when they are in the obligatory glass cases. The original owners expected to handle them. So it is well worth mentioning how good the lighting is at the National Gallery, bringing out the figures much more vividly than is usual. A great many spotlights from all directions are employed. It is surprising to compare the originals with the color reproductions in the catalogue (which include every object, another boon). The color differs a lot in the two places. This is not