614 POLYCHEOMY IN GREEK STATUARY. 



payments and the inventories drawn up by the administrators of the tem- 

 ples of Delos. Under the date of 216, mention is made of gold leaf 

 bought for the gilding of a quiver; this is a marble quiver belonging 

 to a statue of Artemis. Elsewhere we find a salary spoken of that was 

 paid to a painter for coloring in encaustics a statue of Aphrodite, and 

 for the finishing touches (Ko'gju?jgis) given to another statue of the same 

 goddess. 1 This is an industry the tradition of which is never entirely 

 lost in Greece. After the Roman conquest the Greeks kept the secret 

 and came and practiced it in Italy. A funeral inscription found in 

 Rome introduces us to a Greek sculptor who is otherwise unknown, 

 but who practices the profession of " manufacturer of statues and 

 painter in encaustics." 2 Sometimes the duty of coloring the marbles is 

 left to female hands, as we learn from a Pompeiian fresco, where a 

 woman painter's studio is shown; we see her, brush in hand, busily 

 coloring a statue of Priapus, and consulting a painted sketch that is 

 placed before her. 3 In the second century of our era the best connois- 

 seurs in matters of art look upon polychromy as the indispensable com- 

 plement of sculpture. We all know the dialogue of the Portraits, where 

 Lucian introduces two overrefined amateurs, Lykinos and Polystratos. 

 In order to realize a type of perfect beauty, the two men borrow from 

 the most celebrated Greek statues all the features of their description : 

 from the Cnidian of Praxiteles her hair and her brow; from the Aphro- 

 dite of the gardens by Alcamenes, her round and tapering fingers ; from 

 the Lemnian woman by Phidias the outlines of her cheeks and the oval 

 of her face. But that is not all. Polystratos calls for a new element 

 of beauty. "What is it? It is by no means the least interesting, my 

 dear friend, unless the tint that is peculiar to every part appears to 

 you of no importance in point of beauty - - - our work runs great 

 risk to sin on the essential point." And the two great talkers divide 

 out among the most illustrious painters of Greek antiquity the duty of 

 applying such an ideal polychromy. We understand, of course, how 

 Latin writers make likewise very pointed allusions to the painting of 

 statues, how a Roman poet, the author of an epigram on a marble 

 Daphne, should admire both the skill of the sculptor and the skill of 

 the painter, 4 and how another, a contemporary of Augustus, should 

 promise Yenus that he will dedicate to her a marble Amor with vari- 

 egated wings and a painted quiver : 



Marmoreusque tibi, dea, yersicoloribus alis 

 In lnorem picta stabit Amor pbaretra. 5 



Every mind that is free from prejudice must needs be struck by this 

 unbroken continuity in the evidence. Even if there were no other 



'Homolle: Bulletin de correspondance belldnique, 1890, page 499. 

 2 Loewy: Insc-hriften Griechisrher Bildhauer, No. 551. 



3 Museo Borbonico, VII, 3. Helbig, Wandgemalde der St.iidte Campaniens, No. 

 1443. Paul Girard, La peinture antique, page 260. 



4 Antbologie latine, I, page 223, ed. II. Meyer. 



5 In the collection of verses attributed to Virgil. Catalecta, VI. 



