Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/165

 THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. I49 between the Parthenon and the Theseum, as its inner plain friezes have blocks and gutts at intervals. The drums of its columns were connected by wooden blocks and pins like the columns of the Parthenon, and the painted decoration was similar. The painting at the Theseum was described a century ago by Dodwell : " Some elegant painted foliage and a meander resembling that of the Parthenon are remarked on the interior cornice. The lacunaria are adorned with square compartments, on each of which is painted a radiated ornament or a star." His full and clear account of the painting on the sculptures has been quoted on p. 89. It is fully corroborated by what Leake saw about twenty years later. "All the sculptures of the Theseum, both those of the metopes and of the friezes of the vestibules, preserve the remains of the colours with which they were 7" painted. Vestiges of bronze and f^ W ^f^ W <^j golden-coloured arms, of a blue sky !J^ wl ^|/^ w ^J [background], and of blue, green, f(g^^'^^(^^^^s^ and red drapery are very apparent. The custom was brought from Egypt, that country to which the Greeks were indebted for so large a share of their architecture and other arts." Many writers have observed that the orna- p- ,4g_painted mental painting was outlined by a Decoration, scratched line. Chandler says that at the Theseum " Mr Pars found out the method used in drawing the echinus or eggs and anchors from the marks of the compasses on the walls." This note seems to embody a slight mistake, for in one of Stuart's plates of the temple the construction of a painted dead decoration is shown by circles drawn by compasses. It is probable that the orna- ment generally was outlined by means of a " templet." The elegant painted scrolls and palmettes of the Theseum are much more elaborate than the patterns at the Parthenon, and this again speaks of later date. For all that concerns the sculptures and other details see the monograph of Bruno Sauer (1899), who restores even the pedimental composition from the slight indications in the fabric