Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/354

 3i6 A History of Art in Chalo.f.a and Assyria. left marks on the cross-bar which may still be distinguished. Their feet were surrounded by a line of gilding. These pieces of furniture show great variety in their forms and decorative motives. Sometimes the ornament is purely geometrical, like that of the foot shown in our Fig. 195, where it is composed of several rings placed one above the other with a bold torus-like Fig. 194. — Fragment of a throne. Length 18 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier. swell in the middle. More frequently, however, the bronze uprights end in capitals resembling a bunch of leaves in shape. We have already encountered this type in the ivories, where it occurs in the balustrade of a small window (Vol. I., Fig. 129); we also find it strongly marked in the throne from Van, where the drooping leaves are chiselled with much care. We find the same FlG. 195. — Bronze foot of a piece of furniture. Louvre. motive in a small sandstone capital in the British Museum. It is in one piece with its shaft. We are inclined to think it a part of some stone chair in which the forms of wooden and bronze furniture were copied (Fig. 196). 1 1 Reasoning from the analogy of the ivories above mentioned, it might be thought that this fragmentary column belonged to the balustrade of a window. M. Dieulafoy,