. [ '34 ] 
the moderns. He farther aflures me, that he faw 
this picture, which (together with its cover) was de- 
pofited in the cabinet of the Marquis Capponi at 
Rome. 
The circumftance of this piece being painted on 
marble, naturally leads our thoughts up to the age 
of the fragments of glafs, which occafioned my dif- 
fertation, viz. to the overthrow of Herculaneum, out 
of whofe ruins four pictures (among many others) 
have been found painted on the fame materials. 
There is a palTage in Pliny *, which has been 
thought to carry up this manner of painting as high 
as to the times of Claudius, who began to reign 
A. C. 41. But I am humbly of opinion, that lapi- 
dem pingere, in this place, does not mean painting 
on done or marble, but only the ftaining them with 
artificial colours ; as the remaining part of the fen- 
tence relates to the inlaying of pieces of marble of 
various tints, where the original veins were defective, 
either in variety or beauty : not that I think it at all 
improbable, at the fame time, that this fpecies of 
painting might he as antient as the epocha mentioned 
above, viz. the reign of Claudius ; becaufe it actually 
fubfifted in the time of Pliny, which muft reach up 
to that aera j for the four paintings referred to in the 
beginning of this paragraph, as done in the fame 
manner, were found in the ruins of a city (viz. 
* Crepimus et lapidem pingere. Hoc Ciaudii principatu in- 
ventum. Neronis vero maculas, qua? non eftent, in cruftis in- 
ferendo unitateni variarc, ut ovatus efTet Numidicus, ut purpura 
diftingueretur Sinnadicus, qualiter illos, nafci optarent dclicue*. 
Hift. Nat. Lib. xxxv. c. 1. 
Hercu- 
