Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/127

 The Column. "5 m mnm rr we have had occasion to point out that pendant leaves form a kind of colbr or ring at the summit of shafts or uprights of some kind or another, and terminate in a festooned border.' True, the form seen here, and manifested in numerous monu- ments of Anterior Asia, is not precisely similar in design to that of the Persian order, in that it is shorter and has more of a bulging outline; none the less, the principle is identical in both.* The same vegetable form was the model whence all artists, whether of Mesopotamia, Syria, or Persia, borrowed their idea; but each has worked it out in his own way, and this has resulted in marked dif- ferences between this and that rendering. The ring of leaves appears on the internal face of the door-jambs at Persepolls, as well as the uprights of the throne at Naksh-i-Rustem. The aspect it offers in every instance may be observed in Fig. 44. The same throne, too, exhibits another form of the complex capital, namely, volutes placed in a perpendicular direction along the transverse rail of the seat ; they are disposed in sets of two, turned opposite ways, but all decorate the bars inter- posing between them (Fig. 45). Taken singly, the features t'lG, 44.— Uprioht of fojral throne, Naksh- i-Raaten. FlANDiM and CotTi, Arj» MMfatw, Plate CLXXVIL forms similar to these, likewise derived from Assyrian ivories, will be found in DnuLAfor, L*Artmdfiie, tom. iii. Figs. 53* 54* S6> bronze, after De Vogues, which bean a striking lesemblance to the Persian specimen. Digitized by Google
 * //is/, of Art, torn. ii. Figs, 129, 383, 386 ; torn. iii. Figs. 80, 81, 84. Examples of
 * Reference to His/, of Ar/, torn, ii. Fig. 383, sbowl the foot of a throne in