opriate place only on the breasts
of gigantic statues: the enormous size of the stone figures to which
alone they are adapted would relieve them, and show them in their proper
proportions. The artists of the second Theban empire tried all they
could, however, to get rid of the square framework in which the sacred
bird is enclosed, and we find examples among the pectorals in the Louvre
of the sparrow-hawk only with curved wings, or of the ram-headed hawk
with the wings extended; but in both of them there is displayed the same
brilliancy, the same purity of line, as in the square-shaped jewels,
while the design, freed from the trammels of the hampering enamelled
frame, takes on a more graceful form, and becomes more suitable for
personal decoration.

[Illustration: 347.jpg THE RAM-HEADED SPARROW-HAWK IN THE LOUVRE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a jewel in the Louvre.

The ram's head in the second case excels in the beauty of its
workmanship anything to be found elsewhere in the museums of Europe or
Egypt. It is of the finest gold, but its value does not depend upon the
precious material: the ancient engraver knew how to model it with a bold
and free hand, and he has managed to invest it with as much dignity
as if he had been carving his subject in heroic size out of a block of
granite or limestone. It is not an example of pure industrial art, but
of an art for which a designation is lacking. Other examples, although
more carefully executed and of more costly materials, do not approach it
in value: such, for instance, are the earrings of Ramses XII. at
Gizeh, which are made up of an ostentatious combination of disks,
filigree-work, chains, beads, and hanging figures of the urseus.

To get an idea of the character of the plate on the royal sideboards, we
must have recourse to the sculptures in the temples, or to the paintings
on the tombs: the engraved gold or silver centrepieces, dishes, bowls,
cups, and amphoras, if valued by weight only, were too precious to
escape the avarice of the impoverished generations which followed the
era of Theban prosperity. In the fabrication of these we can trace
foreign influences, but not to the extent of a predominance over native
art: even if the subject to be dealt with by the artist happened to be a
Phoenician god or an Asiatic prisoner, he was not content with slavishly
copying his model; he translated it and interpreted it, so as to give it
an Egyptian character.

The house