Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/178

 l62 THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. Fig. 162. — Moulding after Penrose. work, although it may be a copy. An open space is left in the lacunaria, which was repeated in the roof above, so that the prints of Poseidon's trident, above which this porch was erected, should be open to the sky. These lacunaria are a remarkable instance of the paring away of all surplus stone for the sake of lightness. In the middle of each coffer is a hole, where doubt- less a rosette of bronze was attached, as Penrose remarks. (Fig. 161.) The drawing of the west front by Stuart, at the Institute of Architects, shows the starting stone of the part of the pedi- ment which sloped up against the west front, and Inwood shows the spring- ing stones of the front, finishing above with an egg and tongue. The height of the tympanum was about 3.6 ; its three stones, Inwood says, were in position in his time. No part of the cymatium, however, had then been found. Penrose gave a woodcut of a fragment found on the Acropolis, of which he remarks, " there cannot be a doubt but that it is part of the cymatium of the north portico, . . . the carving is unsurpassed by any details of the temple." The whole, shown on Fig. 162, was about I2i inches high. The pattern figured by Penrose ap- pears also at the Heraeum of Argos after 420, as Dr Waldstein has pointed out. (Fig. 163.) The birds in both are extremely interesting, as perhaps the first appearance of the picturesque variet)- and naturalism which was slowly to creep into classical art. Dr Waldstein thinks that the Argos example was at least ten years the earlier, but this is very doubtful. I find amongst the Stuart Papers in the MSS. Room (22152-3) Fig. 163. — Moulding from Argos.