8o 



FLORA OF THE 



I confess that in this figure I can see nothing more 

 than an ornament to fill a certain space, such as that 



Fig. 34. 

 of fig- 35. ^vhich is on the top of the looking-glass on 

 my mantel-piece. I conjecture that in this case the 

 artist wanted to fill a certain space with something 

 not incongruous with the nature of the building. He 

 selected a rosette for the centre, and put a figure on 

 each side. The figure he happened to have selected 



Fig. 35. — Ornament on a mirror over a mantel-piece. 



was the winged cone-figure, but a winged sphinx, or 

 a winged griffin, would have done as well. All these 

 figures were continually in the artist's mind as elements 

 of his compositions, and in this case the ones 

 selected would have been conditioned, not only by the 

 character of the building, but by the space available. 



