ANCIENT CARVED IVORIES 37 



They shared these privileges with architects and painters, 

 so that their profession must have been regarded as a very 

 honourable one.* 



A pyx for containing the sacred Host, executed in the 

 fifth or sixth century by a Latin carver, is one of the most 

 curious ivories of the Cluny collection. The figures sculp- 

 tured around the sides are copied from the representations 

 on early Christian sarcophagi and depict the cure of the 

 paralytic, that of the man born blind, the Samaritan woman, 

 and the resurrection of Lazarus. In this we have a good 

 example of the decadence of classic art in carving. 



Italian art of the sixth or seventh century, representing 

 the rapidly waning classic tradition, furnishes an interest- 

 ing if not especially beautiful ivory carving in the Louvre 

 Museum. The subject is St. Paul preaching, but the neces- 

 sities of the treatment have forced the artist to make the 

 apostolic preacher turn his back upon the congregation, 

 unless we are to suppose that those in view represent but a 

 small part of his auditors. 



*See Giiido PanciroUus, "De magistratibus municipalibus; de corporibus artificum"; in 

 Graevius, "Thesaiirus Romanarum antiquitatum," Vol. Ill, Venetiis, 1732, col. 83. 



