Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/15

Rh Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. This second dish is said to be still in the possession of the Burnes family, and would be an invaluable addition to the few objects of historical Indian art in the India Museum. The patera belonging to the India Office Library had been an heirloom in the family of the Mirs of Badakshan, who claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great; and it had been sold by them in their extremity, when they were conquered by Mir Morad Bey of Kunduz, to Atmaram his Dewan Begi. It was from Atmaram that Dr. Lord obtained it, and the Persian dish also; and he presented the patera to the India Museum, and the Persian dish to Sir Alexander Burnes. The diameter of the patera is 9 inches, its depth 1 inches, and its thickness to  and  of an inch; and its weight 29 oz. 5 dwt. Troy. It represents in high relief, with all the usual adjuncts of classic mythology, the procession of Dionysos. The god himself sits in a car drawn by two harnessed females, with a drinking cup in his extended right hand, and his left arm resting on the carved elbow of the seat on which he reclines, or it may be the shoulder of Ariadne. In front of the car stands a winged Eros holding a wine-jug in his left hand, and brandishing in his right a fillet, the other end of which is held by a flying Eros. A third Eros is pushing the wheel of the carnage, behind which follows the dancing Heracles, recognised by the club and panther's skin. Over all is a rude and highly conventionalised representation of a clustering vine; and in the lower exergue a panther is seen pressing its head into a wine-jar, placed between the representations of some tree, possibly the pomegranate, arranged symmetrically on either side of it.

The figures, which shew traces of gilding, are all encrusted on the surface of the patera, and the heads of the Dionysos and Heracles are both wanting. It is in the style of the later Roman and Byzantine ivories; and on the face of it, from the thickness of the silver, especially in the raised figures, its debased drawing, and slovenly workmanship, it belongs to an age when Greek art