is genuine relief.  The forms are everywhere modeled, whereas in much of what is commonly called bas-relief in Egypt, the figures are only outlined and the spaces within the outlines are left flat.  As regards the treatment of the human figure, we have here the stereotyped Egyptian conventions.  The head, except the eye, is in profile, the shoulders in front view, the abdomen in three-quarters view, the legs again in profile.  As a result of the distortion of the body, the arms are badly attached at the shoulders.  Furthermore the hands, besides being very badly drawn, have in this instance the appearance of being mismated with the arms, while both feet look like right feet.  The dress consists of the usual loin-cloth and of a thin, transparent over-garment, indicated only by a line in front and below.  Now surely no one will maintain that these methods and others of like sort which there is no opportunity here to illustrate are the most artistic ever devised.  Nevertheless serious technical faults and shortcomings may coexist with great merits of composition and expression.  So it is in this relief of Seti.  The design is stamped with unusual refinement and grace.  The theme is hackneyed enough, but its treatment here raises it above the level of commonplace.

Egyptian bas-reliefs were always completely covered with paint, laid on in uniform tints.  Paintings on a flat surface differ in no essential respect from these painted bas-reliefs.  The conventional and untruthful methods of representing the human form, as well as other objects—­buildings, landscapes, etc.—­are the same in the former as in the latter.  The coloring, too, is of the same sort, there being no attempt to render gradations of color due to the play of light and shade.  Fig. 13, a lute-player from a royal tomb of the Eighteenth Dynasty, illustrates some of these points.  The reader who would form an idea of the composition of extensive scenes must consult works more especially devoted to Egyptian art.  He will be rewarded with many a vivid picture of ancient Egyptian life.

Art was at a low ebb in Egypt during the centuries of Libyan and Ethiopian domination which succeeded the New Empire.  There was a revival under the Saite monarchy in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.  To this period is assigned a superb head of dark green stone (Fig. 14), recently acquired by the Berlin Museum.  It has been broken from a standing or kneeling statue.  The form of the closely-shaven skull and the features of the strong face, wrinkled by age, have been reproduced by the sculptor with unsurpassable fidelity.  The number of works emanating from the same school as this is very small, but in quality they represent the highest development of Egyptian sculpture.  It is fit that we should take our leave of Egyptian art with such a work as this before us, a work which gives us the quintessence of the artistic genius of the race.