Images produced without manipulation (DSLR Camera, Canon). They are part of a project I undertook while in Paris (January & February 2018), visiting, registering and studying works in museums and churches (for more information, see here). 

Works photographed here include a Greek head of Apollos and the Roman bust of a satyr also know as the "Faun de Vienne."

The following quotations are enlightening: 

"It has been argued that the Old Testament ban on 'graven images' is connected not only with a fear of idolatry but with the more universal fear of encroaching on the creator's prerogatives... [For the Eastern Church] the test was whether you could take the image by the nose. Are these magical beliefs?... I remember a visit I made to one of Queen Victoria's residences, Osborne on the Isle of Wight.... there was a life-size sculpture of a large furry dog..." (Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion). 

"Has it not been suggested that the Great Sphinx was not conceived as the representation of a divinity but rather as a watchful guardian in his own right?... [Egyptian images] scarcely record a bygone reality; they embody a potent presence... [The Egyptian sculptor] weave a spell to enforce eternity. Not our idea of eternity... Plato we know, looked back with nostalgia at the immobile schemata of Egyptian art" (Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion).