Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/299

 Gems. 267 rough and summary in its execution, the figures are believed to be those of women, on account of the way in which the hair is arranged. It is clubbed with ribbons at the back of the neck. The artist seems also to have tried to suggest the amplitude of the female bosom. On the whole we may believe the scene to represent a goddess — Istar perhaps — surrounded by worshippers of her own sex. In the Louvre there is a cylinder with a scene of Fig. 144. — Chaldaean cylinder. Basalt. Louvre. Drawn by Wallet the same kind, but more complex and, for us, more obscure (Fig. 145). A seated figure, apparently female from the long hair % flowing over the shoulders, sits upon a low stool and holds a child upon her knees. In front of the group thus formed stands a man who seems to be offering some beverage in a horn-shaped cup. Behind him there are three not inelegant vases upon a bracket, and a man kneeling beside a large jar upon a tripod. The latter Fig. 145. — Chaldœan cylinder. Basalt. Louvre. holds in his hand the spoon with which he has filled the goblet presented by his companion. We may, perhaps, take the whole that it occurred upon the convex sides of a cylinder, where the eye of the spectator did not grasp it all at once, as upon the flat impression. In choosing such an arrangement, the artist seems to have desired to connect the figure both with the seated god and the figures on the other side ; it is an expedient of the same nature as the five legs of the Ninevite bulls.