Assyrian sculpture was for the most part in relief. The Assyrians carved badly in the round, unlike the Babylonians, some of whose sitting statues are not wanting in an air of dignity and repose. But they excelled in that kind of shallow relief of which so many examples have been brought to the British Museum. We can trace three distinct periods in the history of this form of art. The first period is that which begins, so far as we know at present, with the age of Assur-natsir-pal. It is characterised by boldness and vigour, by an absence of background or landscape, and by an almost total want of perspective. With very few exceptions, faces and figures are drawn in profile. But with all this want of skill, the work is often striking from the spirit with which it is executed, and the naturalness with which animals, more especially, are depicted. A bas-relief representing a lion-hunt of Assur-natsir-pal has been often selected as a typical, though favourable, illustration of the art of this age. The second period extends from the foundation of the Second Assyrian Empire to the reign of Esar-haddon. The artist has lost in vigour, but has compensated for it by care and accuracy. The foreground is now filled in with vegetable and other forms, all drawn with a pre-Raffaellite exactitude. The relief consequently becomes exceedingly rich, and produces the effect of embroidery in stone. It is probable that the delicate minuteness of this period of art was in great measure due to the work in ivory that had now become fashionable at Nineveh. The third, and best period, is that of the reign of Assur-bani-pal. There is a return to the freedom of the first period, but without its accompanying rudeness and want of skill. The landscape is either left bare, or indicated in outline only, the attention of the spectator being thus directed to the principal sculpture itself. The delineation of the human figure has much improved; vegetable forms have lost much of their stiffness, and we meet with several examples of successful foreshortening. Up to the last, however, the Assyrian artist succeeded but badly in human portraiture. Nothing can surpass some of his pictures of animals; when he came to deal with the human figure he expended his strength on embroidered robes and the muscles of the legs and arms. The reason of this is not difficult to discover. Unlike the Egyptian, who excelled in the delineation of the human form, he did not draw from nude models. The details of the drapery were with him of more importance than the features of the face or the posture of the limbs. We cannot expect to find portraits in the sculptures of Assyria. Little, if any, attempt is made even to distinguish the natives of different foreign countries from one another, except in the way of dress. All alike have the same features as the Assyrians themselves.