Any study of the sculpture of Alexandrian origin reveals one characteristic almost invariably present in serious work, as opposed to the grotesque, and absent from the certified products of other centres. This is that quality of slurring over all sharp detail in the features and producing a highly polished, almost liquidly transparent surface for which we have borrowed the Italian term _morbidezza_.[37] Instances of this highly impressionist treatment are to be found in the British Museum head of Alexander from Alexandria, and also in the Sieglin head from the same place; in the Triton head of the Dresden Alexandrian group of Triton and Aphrodite; in the many Anadyomene copies which are mostly connected with Alexandria, such for instance as the beautiful statue recently found in Cyrenaica (Fig. 11); in girls’ heads from Alexandria in Copenhagen and Dresden. In most of these works and in many others the soft transparent quality of the face is matched by a quite rough impressionist blocking-out of the hair. Thus we find both the characteristics of Praxitelean impressionism, the rough hair and the soft liquid gaze, exaggerated and intensified in Alexandrian sculpture. While the female hair of Pergamene art is invariably clear-cut and rope-like, Alexandrian hair is normally of the rough crinkly Praxitelean type, sometimes merely formal, at others more complicated and complete. This impressionist character of Alexandrian sculpture is borne out by what we know of its painting, and is doubtless due to some extent to the great influence of painting on sculpture as well as to the influence of Praxiteles. Another technical point about Alexandrian sculpture is connected with the local conditions of the country. Egypt is not a country of marble, and therefore the artists had to be economical in the use of it. This is probably the reason why so many Alexandrian heads have the faces complete in marble but the hair added separately in stucco, where the colouring would render the difference in material hardly noticeable. Thus many statues of Alexandrian origin have large pieces of the upper part of their heads smoothed away and left for the addition of stucco. This phenomenon is not confined to Alexandrian art, though it is much commoner at Alexandria than elsewhere, and where we find it in combination with the other qualities of impressionism and _morbidezza_ already noticed we may feel fairly confident in claiming an Alexandrian origin for the work in question. [Illustration: 14] [Illustration: 15] [Illustration: 16]