[ 659 ] 
male painter, Lala, juft mentioned, upon whom .the 
words of Pliny are very precifej u Romas et penici lo 
“ pinxit, et ceftro in ebore which Monf. Durand has 
rendered thus : “ elle peignot a Rome, ou fur le bois, 
“ ou fur l’yvoire, comme on vouloit, ou avec le pin- 
tc ceau, ou avec de cire coloree.” “ She painted 
u at Rome either upon wood or upon ivory, as (lie 
thought proper, either with a pencil, or with co- 
“ loured wax.” Now Pliny has not one word of 
wood or coloured wax in this paftage ; nor could 
he mean any other, than that fhe fometimes painted 
with a pencil, and fometimes carved in ivory. 
I am therefore inclined to think, that when Pliny 
mentions cera in the lingular number, altho’ he fays 
pingere , yet as the cefirum is mentioned with it, it 
muft be underftood to mean carving or modelling • 
but that when it is in the plural, as in the following 
cited paftage, and of burning the picture, he muft 
mean the true encauftic or enamel painting, and the 
ceris muft mean a compolition, which was capable of 
enduring the lire 5 for which, perhaps, the following 
lhort reafons may have fome weight. 
It appears in the 2d chapter of his 35-th book* 
where Pliny is fpeaking of the Homs imagijium , that 
modelling was greatly pradtifed, efpecially the bufts 
of great men, and of very ancient ftanding. Thefe 
were made during the lives of the perfons, and laid 
up in their armories, or other repolitories, till their 
deaths, in order to be carried before the deceafed in 
their funeral rites, and cxpofed to the public, while 
an oration was made by the neareft of kin, who 
pointed to the image, as he proceeded, in his Elo- 
gium upon the virtues of theperfon reprefented : and 
