Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/334

 306 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. feet of the figure appears a fragment of that cable ornament of which Assyria was so fond. 1 The painter must have taken his figure and its accessories from some object of glazed earthenware or metal, which in itself cannot have been original. Upon most of these vases the figures are purely conventional. Mingled with birds, flowers, and leaves of uncertain species, they are nothing more than decorations. This is clearly shown by the cenochoe" here figured (Fig. 245), which is very fine in its way. A person of uncertain sex stands between a swan and a large lotus flower crowning a stem from which smaller birds and blooms FIG. 245. CEnochoe. New York Museum. shoot out below. 2 We know where these vegetable forms came from, and Egypt is also suggested by the costume of the figure, 1 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. Figs. 126 and 137, and Vol. II. Plates XIII. and XIV. 2 We do not believe that the decorator of this vase had any thought of Leda and her swan. None of the authentic Cypriot vases bear illustrations of Greek mythology, and moreover, the general character of the decoration is here identical with that of many more things of the same class. On a vase from Citium, where the execution of the ornament as a whole does not sensibly differ from what we see here, a stag occupies the place filled by a human figure on this cenochoe.