This clever contrivance gives singular vitality and animation to the face. Even the Grecian sculptor never produced anything so vivacious. The latter, indeed began by renouncing all attempts to imitate the depth and brilliancy of the human eye. His point of departure differed entirely from that of his Memphite predecessor; his conception of his art led him, where the Egyptian would have used colour, to be content with the general characteristics of form and with its elevation to the highest pitch of nobility of which it was capable. This is not the place for a comparison of the two systems, but accepting the principles of art which prevailed in early Egypt, we must do justice to those masters who were contemporary with the Pyramids. It must be acknowledged that they produced works which are not to be surpassed in their way by the greatest portraits of modern Europe. In later years the Egyptian sculptor ceased to paint the eyes. Even in the time of the Ancient Empire the Egyptian custom in this particular was the same as the Greek, so far as statues in hard stone were concerned. The great statue of Chephren is an instance. In it the chisel has merely reproduced the contours of the eyelids and the salience of the eyeball. No attempt has been made to imitate the iris or to give brightness to the pupil. In none of the royal statues that have come down to our time do we find any effort to produce this kind of illusion, either by the use of paint or by the insertion of naturally coloured substances. There is a statue at Boulak which may, perhaps, be preferred even to the scribe of the Louvre. We have already alluded to it as the _Sheik-el-Beled_ (Fig. 7, Vol. I.). In its present state (it is without either feet or base) it has no inscription but it is sometimes called Ra-em-ké, because that was the name of the person in whose tomb it was found. It is of wood, and, with the exception of its lower members, is in marvellous preservation. The eyes are similar to those of the scribe, and seem to be fixed upon the spectator while their owner advances upon him. The type is very different from those we have hitherto been describing. The face is round and flat, and so is the trunk. The smiling good humour of the expression and the _embonpoint_ of the person indicate a man well nourished and comfortably off, a man content both with himself and his neighbours.[182] [182] Another wooden statue of equal merit as a work of art was found in the same tomb. It represents a woman, standing. Unfortunately there is nothing left of it but the head and the torso. _Notice des principaux Monuments du Musée de Boulak_, No. 493. [Illustration: FIG. 176.--Wooden panel from the Tomb of Hosi. Drawn by Bourgoin] [Illustration: FIG. 177.--Limestone head, in the Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]