Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/175

 FIGURES OF DIVINITIES. 153 trace of archaic stiffness has vanished and with it the hanging tresses and spreading trinkets ; the motive is realized in the simplest and most abstract fashion ; there is nothing to divide our attention with the idea on which the sculptor wished to concentrate it. Sometimes, but much more rarely, this deity is draped. In that case her robe is open in front, like that of a nurse, while with her left hand she applies a cone to her right breast ; the cone is, perhaps, a phallic symbol. 1 It has also been asserted that the type of the famous Aphrodite of Cnidus is to be found in Phoenicia and Cyprus, and even that FIG. 103. Terra-cotta statuette. Height 6 inches. From Ileuzey. the chain of ideas by which Praxiteles had his attention drawn to a motive foreign enough to the Greek genius may there be traced. 2 The theme lends itself to curious reflections, which have, we think, been carried rather too far. The age of those Cypriot and Asiatic figurines upon which this notion is founded should first have been clearly ascertained. 1 I do not know where the figure here alluded to now is. I saw the drawing of it in the possession of G. Colonna Ceccaldi ; it was not reproduced with tl drawings found among his papers, in the volume of his collected articles. 2 FR. LENORMANT, Essai sur les Fragments ctsmogoniques df Bcrose, pp. VOL. II.