Volume II Part 24 (1/2)

Soure is modelled in relief in a sunk hollohich is fro 240) This ypt, was doubtless suggested by the desire to protect the iularly efficient, the high ”bed”

of the relief guarding it both from accidental injury, and froe, however, in the confusing shadohich obscured a part of the s on granite and basalt sarcophagi (Fig 195, Vol I) It would have cost toosurfaces This method, when once taken up, was extended to li those objects in the Louvre which were discovered in the Serapeu Aed, and we have preferred to give as a specimen the fine head of Rameses II, chiselled in a slab of li

240)

In the third systeures and the bed, or field, of the relief are kept on one level The contours are indicated by hollow lines cut into the stone In this case there is very little h depth to enable the sculptor to indicate different planes, and his work becomes little more than a silhouette in which the outline is shown by a hollow instead of by the stroke of a pencil or brush When yptian artist was content with this outline Most of those vast historical and biographical scenes which cover the walls of the Ra 173, Vol I), were executed by it

[Illustration: FIG 240--Portrait of Rameses II, Louvre Drawn by Saint-El reliefs have coh The sculptor simply carved the faces of their liea the difficulties were frequently great, and yet they were always surmounted The bas-reliefs in such places were, as a rule, on a small scale Consequently, the knobs of flint and the petrified shells hich the sculptor's chisel was continually coree Whereever such unkindly luh holes which they left were squared and filled up either with a cement which became very hard with time, or with pieces of stone accurately adjusted In the latter case, the joints have been made with such care that it is very difficult to discover them In some tomb chambers these insertions are so numerous that they make up not less than a quarter of the whole surface[278]

[278] _Description de l'egypte, Antiquites_, vol iii p 42

As soon as the carvings upon the walls were finished, the latter were covered with a thin layer of stucco This was hardly ever omitted; it was laid upon rock, cement, and limestone indiscriround for coloured decoration than the naked stone[279]

[279] BELZONI (_Narrative of the Operations_, etc pp 343-365) mentions the presence of this stucco upon the colossi of Rameses at Ipsamboul as well as on the walls of the tombs in the Bab el-Molouk

The principal place in these bas-reliefs is occupied by huures, and after them by those of animals The accessories, such as the landscape and inanihtly indicated, all the labours of agriculture are illustrated, but only so far as the action of man is iround than is absolutely necessary for the right comprehension of the scene[280] The Greeks followed the sayptians ell advised Their artistic instincts must have warned them of the true conditions of work in relief, which cannot, without the greatest peril, atte

[280] This point is very well brought out by RHIND (_Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants_, etc, pp 24-25)

To this practice we est a few exceptions, in certain chiselled pictures at Tell-el-Amarna, and even Thebes itself, in which the artist see the beauties of nature, of groves and gardens surrounding palaces and hus, partly for their own sake, partly attracted by some unwonted aspects of the scene which see countries

In yptian sculptor made man the centre and _raison d'etre_ of his work, and yet, here and there, he shows hiement of the scene about him It is not without reason, therefore, that soin, the first rough sketch, of those landscapes of which _hellenistic_, or as some would say, _Alexandrian_, art was so fond One of the most famous of these is the _Palestrinathe inundation; its buildings, its ani Nile, are rendered with great vivacity[281]

[281] M MASPERO was the first to start this theory in his paper entitled _Les Peintures des Toyptiens et la Mosaque de Palestrine_

-- 8 _Geypt even in the days of the Ancient Empire, must have felt the necessity for sos natures even at that early date We know that from that time forward the impressions thus made upon wax and clay were eraved stones have come down to us from the early dynasties, and yet their production h to those who carved the diorite statue of Chephren Under the first Theban E of areen-spar and white feldspar, obsidian, serpentine, steatite, rock crystal, red quartz, sardonyx, &c[282] We do not knohether those early workmen employed the lapidary's wheel or not,[283] but we may safely say that they produced some of the finest works of the kind which are known to us The annexed illustration of one of the rarest treasures of the Egyptian collection in the Louvre, will bear out our words (Fig 241)

[282] BIRCH, _Guide to (British) Museuue de la Salle Historique_, Nos 457, 559, _passim_

[283] M SOLDI reed to cut the hardest rocks and to engrave finely upon the e but bronze tools Prescott and Humboldt bear witness to the sa emeralds without iron Their instrument is said to have been the pointed leaf of a wild plantain, used with fine sand and water With such a tool the one condition of success was ti with a e seated before an altar is engraved with extraordinary finish The altar bears the naure is clothed in a _schenti_; a thick necklace is about his neck: his hair is in short thick curls: his legs are largely and firmly drawn

”We are helped to the date of this little work by the engraving on the reverse, which represents a king wearing the red crown and armed with a rasps by the hair The naraved beside him: _Ra-en-ma_, that is Amenemhat III The workmanshi+p of this face is, perhaps, inferior to that of the obverse, the forre and dry; it is however far froue de la Salle Historique_, No 457

[Illustration: FIG 241--Intaglio upon sardonyx, obverse Louvre collection Twice the actual size]

[Illustration: FIG 242--Reverse of the salio]

The cornelian statuette of Ousourtesen I, which the Louvre has unhappily lost, belonged to the same period In the three days of July, 1830, a terrible fire was directed upon the crowd by the Swiss stationed in the colonnade of the Louvre The assailants succeeded, however, in penetrating into the palace and invading the galleries

After their final retire which was ascertained beyond a doubt to be , was this little statuette, which has never been heard of since It was equally valuable for its rarity and the beauty of its workmanshi+p[285]