Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/165

 VARIATIONS OF STYLE AND COSTUME. girdle or open drawers. In another statue from Athieno, also at New York, a garment of the same kind is decorated with three large rosettes. 1 Its use must have been to ^keep the tunic in its place. The rosettes show that at least in the case of the wealthy, some attempt was made to enrich this peculiarly Cypriot garment. Neither in Egypt, Asia nor Greece, has any article of dress quite like this been encountered ; it may be compared, however, in some degree to an Egyptian schenti without the hanging apron. It was only rendered possible by the presence of that close-fitting tunic which is to be found on almost all Cypriot statues ; even on those where it is apparently absent it may have been indicated in paint. This tunic seems to have been as universally worn in Cyprus as a shirt is with us, but its form changed with time. In pseudo- Egyptian statues it fits tightly to the body, but when Greek teaching caused more importance to be given to drapery it became more independent. It was streaked with those light parallel grooves with which the sculptor thought to suggest the softness of the tissue. In one of the statues we have noticed (Fig. 88), the arrangement, too, is quite peculiar to Cyprus. The beardless individual there represented wears two tunics, one over the other. The upper one is a kind of blouse, reaching only to the knees, while the under one falls down about the feet. This under tunic is very narrow ; hanging closely round the limbs, it defines their contours in such a way that we should, at first sight, take its lower part for trousers ; but a closer examination shows that it is not so, and a comparison of this statue with others in which Greek fashions are less widely departed from confirms that decision (see Fig- 96). In the statue here reproduced the folds of the under tunic may be traced from the shoulders to the knees and feet. The contours of the legs are certainly indicated through the stuff, 1 See DOELL, Die Sammlung Cesnola, plate iii. fig. 6. In his Catalogue Doell describes this figure and several more of the same kind (Nos. 67-77) as those of women. What he ought to have said is that we have some difficulty in deciding the sex of many Cypriot statues. However, in the figures wearing this wide hip- cloth, the breast is not larger than in other male figures, and the question seems to be decided by the existence of a beard on the statue numbered 77. This beard is indicated, as in many statues whose sex is beyond a doubt, by a simple boundary line, but that is enough. All the space within it was painted black. Doell notices this beard, but none the less does he refuse to abandon his idea ; we think he is wrong.