Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/87

 PHOENICIAN SCULPTURE IN THE WEST. grooves explain the crowning motive, and prepare us for it ; they may, in fact, be looked at either as purely architectonic decorations or as the vertical folds of a robe from which the bust is supposed to spring. The mind hesitates for a moment between these two explanations, and even in that hesitation there is something agree- able. The suppleness of the living form is thus allied to the rigid lines of the architecture with much greater skill than in another Carthaginian stele, on which the same female bust appears surmounting an Ionic cap (Vol. I. Fig. 16). The entablature is worthy of the column. It has for architrave a decorated band of flowers and lotus-buds. The frieze is filled up entirely with a huge winged globe flanked by the urseus. The FIG. 60. Details from Carthaginian stele. French National Library. very bold cornice is made up of ursei, each bearing on its head a disk surrounded by a ring. Higher still there is a last member which the bad condition of the stone makes it very difficult to define ; it seems to be a row of rosettes. The top of the stele is broken off: it must in all probability have been a triangular pediment. The general physiognomy is very Egyptian. The rich entabla- ture does not contain a single motive that might not have been learnt from Egypt, while the capitals were certainly suggested by the Hathoric capitals of the Nile valley. But the architect has made use of these foreign motives without losing his own freedom. Where Egypt is content to put the head of a woman he puts her VOL. II. K