Gardner, Percy: The principles of Greek art (London, 1924)

204

PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART

chap.

of the period. On the key-stone of a grave in the Crimea was
found a painting' of the head of a woman, crowned with
flowers.1 As in the grave itself there was found a gold coin of
Alexander the Great, the tomb can scarcely have been later
than about 300 B.C. The painting represents a lady with dark

brown hair and eyes. From the
back of the head falls a red veil.
In the ear is an earring, on the
neck a pearl necklace, in the hand
and on the head garlands of flowers.
But this work, though interesting,
is of course the production of a
third-rate artist. At a somewhat
higher level of art, and more easily
accessible to an English student,
are the paintings of the celebrated
Amazon sarcophagus of Corneto,2
which are indeed much injured,
but in parts fairly clear, and which
appear to be by a Greek artist of
the second rank. In these paint-
ings eight or nine colours are used.
The expression of some of the heads
is very striking; and the contrast between the sunburned
bodies of the Greeks and the white forms of the women is
remarkable. I shall content myself with giving in the text a
single example of later fifth-century painting; but, in fact, it
is not an example of painting, but only of drawing as a prepa-
ration for painting. In graves in the Crimea wooden sarcoph-
agi have been found, to which were affixed plates of ivory, and

1 Figured in the Russian Comptus Rendus for 1865 in the exact colours. The
original has now faded. The colours are white, red, yellow, brown, green, and
blue.

2 Figured in colours in the plates (36-38) of the Journal of Hellenic Studies,
1883. The original is at Florence.

Fig. 56. — Ivory Tablet:
St. Petersburg.