Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/271

 224 Pr[M[T[ve Greece: Mycenian Art. having bronze plates inserted in the blade were by no means all alike. Thus, the figures beheld on one of these daggers were first modelled on the bronze plate (PI. XIX. 6),' and after- wards covered with thin gold-leaf. The manes of the animals are rendered by a somewhat redder gold than the remainder of the body, and the image is always strongly relieved against the background. Minor details were indicated, now by delicate lines traced with the point, now — for the broken ground where the animals are running — with gold-leaf, or an alloy of gold and silver which the ancients called electron. The lions are the chief elements of the scene ; the rocks are but an accessory. Fig. 361.— Frngmepl of blaile cb^cr, Aclual siit. Then, too, we have daggers where the ornament is laid on flat, or in almost imperceptible relief, on the bronze blade itself, previously cut or hollowed into small cells for the reception of the gold or electrum fillings, which vary from the deepest red to silvery grey. Details, such as the plumes of a bird's wing, ' No, 2 of Koumanoudis. Length, twenty centimetres.