The second class is one of considerable interest. It consists of a series of miniature vases, of which some twenty in all are known, of the pear-shaped lekythos form, with minute but skilfully-executed figures in a very advanced style. At their head for beauty and delicacy of execution stands the exquisite little Macmillan lekythos in the British Museum,[1030] a masterpiece of its kind. There is also a fine specimen in Berlin (No. 336), others in the Louvre[1031] and the Syracuse Museum (the latter from the local excavations), and three very fine ones have recently been acquired by the Boston Museum.[1032] But for size and richness, if not for beauty, all these are surpassed by a marvellous vase in the Chigi collection at Florence.[1033] This is a jug or oinochoë, decorated with no less than four friezes, two of which are broad, with numerous figures, the two alternate forming narrow borders to these, with hunting scenes. The colouring is most remarkable, the figures being painted in black, yellow ochre, and bright crimson on a cream ground, with a lavish use of incised lines, and on the upper narrow frieze the animals are actually painted in pale buff on a black ground. The upper large frieze represents a combat, with serried ranks of warriors and horsemen advancing to meet each other, those on the right all having elaborate emblems on their shields (birds, ox-heads, Gorgon-heads, etc.). On the lower friezes the figures fall into groups: a four-horse chariot and a row of boys on horseback; a Sphinx; hunters slaying a lion; and lastly a fragmentary group, clearly representing the Judgment of Paris (see Chapter XIV.). It is the figures of this group which bear the inscriptions alluded to above. As an instance of the extreme richness and delicacy of the painting, attention should be called to the chariot-horses in the lower frieze, which are drawn slightly in advance of each other, and painted respectively yellow, black, red, and yellow. The Macmillan lekythos, in spite of its diminutive size, is decorated with no less than three friezes of human figures and animals, as well as other ornaments; the main design represents a combat of warriors; the next, a race of boys on horseback; the lowest, dogs pursuing a hare, and a crouching ape. The total height of the vase is barely 2¾ inches, and yet every detail in these friezes is marked with surprising care and accuracy, the shield-devices of the warriors, for instance, being drawn with wonderful minuteness. The three Boston vases are interesting for their subjects: on one is Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera; on the next, a hero attacking a lion with a human head on its back (a monster no doubt _suggested by_ the Chimaera); the third has the favourite early subject of Herakles’ combat with the Centaurs. In all these vases the use of a red colour on the human figures should be noted, a technical device which we have already noted in the figures on the Melian amphorae (see above, p. 301).