Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/312

 290 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD.KA AND ASSYRIA. work, and he would therefore be contented with less careful execution than that required by his Babylonian rival. The glazed tiles of Assyria were not, as in Chakkm, quasi bas-reliefs. Their tints were put on flat ; the only exception to this being in the case of those rosettes that were made in such extraordinary numbers for use on the upper parts of walls and round doorways ; in these the small central boss is modelled in low relief (see Figs. 121 and 122). These glazed bricks were chiefly used by the Assyrian architect upon doorways and in their immediate neighbourhood. 1 M. Place found the decoration of one of the city gates at Khorsabad almost intact. 2 The enamel is laid upon one edge of the bricks, which are on the average three inches and a half thick. Figures are relieved in yellow, and rosettes in white against the blue ground. FIGS. 121, 122. Rosettes in glazed pottery. Louvre. A band of green marks the lower edge of the tiara. a The same motives and the same figures were repeated for the whole length of the band. The figures are winged genii in different postures of worship and sacrifice. They bear in their hands those metal seals and pine cones that we so often encounter in the bas-reliefs. Distributed about the entrance these genii seem to be the pro- tectors of the city, they are beneficent images, their gesture is 1 Sir H. LAYARU noticed this at the very beginning of his explorations : " Between the bulls and the lions forming the entrances in different parts of the palace were invariably found a large collection of baked bricks, elaborately painted with figures of animals and flowers, and with cuneiform characters" (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 13^. 2 PLACE, Ninive, vol. i. p. 234; vol. iii. plates 9 and 17. 8 Ibid., vol. iii. plate 14. Ye should have reproduced this composition in colour had the size of our page allowed us to do so on a proper scale. M. Place- was unable to give it all even in a double-page plate of his huge folio.