Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/84

 have learnt more from his conversation than from his writings. Before his departure for Egypt—whither he went to succeed Mariette—M. Maspero was our perpetual counsellor and referee; whenever we were embarrassed we appealed to his well ordered, accurate, and unbiased knowledge. We are also deeply indebted to M. Pierret, the learned conservateur of the Louvre; not only has he done everything to facilitate the work of our draughtsmen in the great museum, he has also helped us frequently with his advice and his accumulated knowledge. M. Arthur Rhôné has lent us a plan of the temple of the Sphinx, and M. Ernest Desjardins a view of the interior of that building.

The artists who have visited Egypt have helped us as cordially as the learned men who have deciphered its inscriptions. M. Gerome opened his portfolios and allowed us to take three of those drawings, which express with such truthful precision the character of Egyptian landscape from them. M. Hector Leroux was as generous as M. Gerome, and if we have taken but one illustration from his sketch-books it is because the arrangements for this volume were complete before we had the chance of looking through them. M. Brune has allowed us to reproduce his plans of Karnak and Medinet-Abou.

We have had occasion, in the work itself, to express our acknowledgments to MM. J. Bourgoin, G. Bénédite, and Saint-Elme Gautier, who have drawn for us the principal monuments of the Boulak and Louvre Museums. For the architecture we must name M. A. Guérin, a pupil of M. Chipiez, who prepared the drawings under the direction of his master, and M. Tomaszkievicz, whose light and skilful point has so well engraved them. If the process of engraving upon zinc has given results which, as we hope, will satisfy our readers, much of the honour belongs to the untiring care of M. Comte, whose process has been employed; all these plates have been reviewed and retouched by him with minute care. The steel engravings are by MM. Ramus, Hibon, Guillaumot père and Sulpis. In order that the polychromatic decoration of the Egyptians should be rendered with truth and precision in its refined tones and complicated line, we begged M. Sulpis to make use of a process which had almost fallen into disuse from its difficulty and want of rapidity; we mean that which is called aquatint. Our plates II., XIII., and XIV. will perhaps convince our readers that its results are superior to those of chromo-lithography, which is now so widely employed.