observed color at Nimrud
on the hair, beard, and eyes of the figures, on the sandals and the
bows, on the tongues of the eagle-headed mythological emblems, on a
garland round the head of a winged priest(?), and on the representation
of fire in the bas-relief of a siege. At Khorsabad, MM. Botta and
Flandin found paint on the fringes of draperies, on fillets, on the
mitre of the king, on the flowers carried by the winged figures, on bows
and spearshafts, on the harness of the horses, on the chariots, on the
sandals, on the birds, and sometimes on the trees. The torches used to
fire cities, and the flames of the cities themselves, were invariably
colored red. M. Flandin also believed that he could detect, in some
instances, a faint trace of yellow ochre on the flesh and on the
background of bas-reliefs, whence he concluded that this tint was spread
over every part not otherwise colored.

It is evident, therefore, that the theory of an absence of color, or of
a very rare use of it, must be set aside. Indeed, as it is certain that
the upper portions of the palace walls, both inside and outside, were
patterned with colored bricks, covering the whole space above the slabs,
it must be allowed to be extremely improbable that at a particular line
color would suddenly and totally cease. The laws of decorative harmony
forbid such abrupt transitions; and to these laws all nations with any
taste instinctively and unwittingly conform. The Assyrian reliefs were
therefore, we may be sure, to some extent colored. The real question is,
to what extent in the Egyptian or in the classical style?

In Mr. Layard's first series of "Monuments," a preference was expressed
for what may be called the Egyptian theory. In the Frontispiece of that
work, and in the second Plate, containing the restoration of a palace
interior, the entire bas-reliefs were represented as strongly colored. A
jet-black was assigned to the hair and beards of men and of all
human-headed figures, to the manes and tails of horses, to vultures,
eagle heads, and the like: a coarse red-brown to winged lions, to human
flesh, to horses' bodies, and to various ornaments, a deep yellow to
common lions, to chariot wheels, quivers, fringes, belts, sandals, and
other portions of human apparel; white to robes, helmets, shields.
tunic's, towns, trees, etc.; and a dull blue to some of the feathers of
winged lions and genii, and to large portions of the ground from which
the sculptures sto