The same law does not hold good in all the sumptuary arts. Take jewelry and gold or silversmith’s work, for instance. The aim is no longer to decorate and illumine a surface of indefinite extent, it is to create an object with a distinct unity and form of its own. The great resource of the worker in precious metal lies, therefore, in those figures of men and animals to which nature has given a clearly defined shape and special features by which one is distinguished from the other. In this respect the goldsmith is the pupil of the sculptor. He reproduces, on a smaller scale, the types created by the statue-maker, and multiplies his copies with the freedom of hand imposed by the necessity for meeting a wider demand. It matters little that in one time or place these imitations are made with less care and refinement of taste than in another; the principle is always the same. In the industrial arts, at least in those in which the figure plays an important _rôle_, we find nothing that cannot be referred to some model created by the same people in their fine arts. The work of the artizan is the reduction, the reflection--enfeebled, indeed, but faithful so far as it goes--of the work of the artist. In glancing over the productions of Chaldæo-Assyrian armourers, jewellers, workers in metal, cabinetmakers, turners, &c., we shall, then, feel no surprise at the introduction and skilful treatment of animals and parts of animals, for we have already shown that the Assyrian sculptors were, perhaps, the foremost _animaliers_ of all antiquity. On the other hand, in the whole of those objects which have taught us some of the favourite motives of the Assyrian ornamentist, we have hardly encountered a human figure; at the most we can only point to one or two objects on which it was used. In the throne of Sennacherib (see above, Fig. 47) it was in reality no more than a symbol. It was not introduced for its own sake, but in order to suggest a particular idea to the mind of the spectator. And as for the earrings moulded into the shape of a child (Figs. 251 and 252), we are not at all sure that they belong to the place and period to which they are ascribed.