It is to be hoped that Mr. Weege’s book will supply a want which is felt the more acutely when we consider the growing interest in antique painting displayed in the last decades. In 1904 Furtwängler, with the assistance of the painter Reichhold, began the publication of the great work on the masterpieces of Greek vase-painting (_Griechische Vasenmalerei_), which was continued by Hauser: part of the third volume is now published. In 1906 appeared the first instalment of Paul Hermann’s great collection of plates after antique, especially Pompeian, wall-painting; this work, which is still in progress, contains beautiful reproductions with and without colours (_Denkmäler der Malerei des Altertums_). Finally, in 1914, Walther Riezler published a splendid work on the white Attic lekythoi (_Weissgründige attische Lekythen_). But during these years nobody thought of bringing to light the treasures hidden away in the sepulchral chambers of Corneto, Chiusi, and Orvieto, although these pictures were much more exposed to destruction than either the vases in the well-guarded rooms of the Museums or the Pompeian wall-paintings. For after heavy showers the floors of the deeply sunk tombs of Corneto are under water, and the damp then loosens the tufa of the walls so that the layer of stucco, on which the colours are laid _al fresco_, peels off. The heavy iron doors which the Italian Government has placed before the entrances are worse than useless, because they shut the moisture in and prevent the tombs from getting dry. If these doors had been placed at the top of the stairs leading to the tombs, thus changing place with the lattice doors which are now there, all would have been well. At Corneto, it is moisture which demolishes the stucco layer, varying from ¼ to 1 cm. in thickness, and bleaches the colours—red chalk, vermilion, lime-colour, ochre, cobalt, and copper colours, at Chiusi it is the drought which most frequently destroys the paintings, the colours here being laid directly on the stone walls. [Sidenote: THE NY CARLSBERG FACSIMILES]