Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/495

 438 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. reduced copy of the ewers that have passed before the reader's eye, no example has been discovered which approaches a ^laKij or deep patera exhumed at Vaphio {Fig. 524). Double spirals, carved in thin gold-leaf fixed by nails of the same metal, appear on the handle, and are continued in single file on the lip of the vase. The decoration of a bowl, which is described in the Odyssey, was no doubt carried on in the same style and with the same method. " It is entirely of silver," says the poet, "and its lips are overlaid with gold." ' The rare skill of the goldsmith is Fee. 5*7.— The handle of bronic ewer, well seen in a patera from MyceniE (Fig. 374); the handle, in place of being soldered on or fixed to the body with nails, has been worked out with the hammer from the solid plate which forms the body of the vase.^ The artisan of this epoch has shown no less imagination or taste than he who had worked for the kings buried in the upper city ; on the other hand, skilful labour may by that time have become more plentiful. That such was probably the case, is inferred from the very careful decoration depicted on a bronze pitcher discovered in one of the tombs of the lower city of Mycenae ' Odyssey. It is Tsoundas' remark. - 'E^ijjutpici 1888.