File:Hector Leroux--Vestals--Mansell--London.jpg

English: Hector Leroux (1829-1900), Ecole de vestales (School of the Vestals), Paris Salon 1880, Mansell Collection, London.

"'School of Vestals' is a large and important work, replete with the usual poetic grace that invariably distinguishes his works. The young girls dedicated to the service of the goddess are being instructed in the method of keeping up the sacred fire by a priestess, who sheds some precious essence on the flame; the form of this last, robed in white drapery, slightly bordered with crimson, is peculiarly graceful in pose and action. The rows of white-robed young damsels look on, some listlessly, others with an absorbed interest. The scene is the interior of a temple, and the varied details of the architecture and the accessories are rendered with care and accuracy." —Lucy H. Hooper, "The Paris Salon of 1880", The Art Journal, New Series, Vol. 6, 1880, p. 222.

"The School of the Vestals....is a composition of some nine feet in breadth....In a semicircle of white-robed Vestals; the chief priestess mounts upon a bench to pour libations into the ever-burning tripod; on two chairs in front sit the priestesses selected for that night's watch, and whose responsibility it is to keep the ever-burning flame from expiring; the novices and devotees are ranged around, and a reader at the right proclaims the harsh laws of the temple from a scroll written with capital letters in early Roman style. The scene takes place in a rotunda, truly Roman in architecture, on whose niches are inscribed the names of families great in the Albann land before the crime of a Vestal gave being Romulus."—Cicerone, "American Art Galleries", The Art Amateur, Vol. 6, No. 3, February, 1882, p. 52.