Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/268

 236 A History ov Art tn Chald.ka and Assyria. There is no inscription, but both Place and Layard agree that the proportions of the figures, and their execution, and the costume of the king, declare the work to have been carried out in the time of the Sargonids, probably under Sennacherib, but if not, during the reion either of his father, his son, or his grandson. We have been led to give a reproduction and detailed descrip- tion of these reliefs, chiefly because they acted as a school for the people about them. We find this habit of cutting great sculp- turesque compositions on cliff-faces followed, on the one hand by the natives of Iran, on the other by those of Cappadocia, and in the works they produced there are points of likeness to the Assyrian reliefs that can by no means be accidental. When the proper time comes we shall, we believe, be able to show that there was direct and deliberate imitation. It was not only on these rock-cut sculptures that the gods appeared thus perched on the backs of animals ; the motive was carried far afield by small and easily-portable objects, on which it very often occurs. It is to be found on many of the cylinders ; we reproduce two as examples. Each of these shows us an individual in an attitude of worship before a god standing on a bull's back. The main difference between the two is one of style. The cylinder engraved in Fig. 124 dates from the early Chalclsean monarchy, while its companion (Fig. 125) is ascribed by M. Menant to the Assyrian dynasty of Calah. 1 By their simplicity of arrangement and the nudity of their field, the sculptures of Bavian and Malthaï belong in some sense to the archaic period, but their figures are designed with that finer sense of proportion that distinguished Assyrian art from the reign of Sennacherib onwards. It was, however, in the palaces that the new tendency towards grace and slenderness chiefly made itself felt. We have no sculptures to speak of from the time of Esarhaddon, but no monarch has left us monuments more nume- rous or in better preservation than his son Assurbanipal. A visit to London is necessary, however, for their proper examination, as The latter alone gives a reproduction of them, made from photographs. Between the two accounts there is one considerable discrepancy: Layard speaks of four groups of nine figures each, Place of three only. 1 Other cylinders belonging to the same group will be found reproduced in Lajard Recherches sur le Culte de Vénus, notably in plate iv. figs. 9-12.