Turning from small things to large ones, from the page of papyrus, or the panel of sycamore wood, to the walls of tombs and temples, we find the skilful employment of flat tints equally soothing and agreeable to the eye. Each wall is treated as a whole, the harmony of colour being carried out from bottom to top throughout the various superimposed stages into which the surface was divided. Sometimes the colours are distributed according to a scale of rhythm, or symmetry, balancing and counterbalancing each other. Sometimes one special tint predominates, thus determining the general tone and subordinating every other hue. The vividness of the final effect is always calculated according to the quality and quantity of light by which the picture is destined to be seen. In very dark halls the force of colour is carried as far as it will go, because it would not otherwise have been visible by the flickering light of lamps and torches. On outer wall- surfaces and on pylon-fronts, it was as vivid as in the darkest depths of excavated catacombs; and this because, no matter how extreme it might be, the sun would subdue its splendour. But in half-lighted places, such as the porticoes of temples and the ante-chambers of tombs, colour is so dealt with as to be soft and discreet. In a word, painting was in Egypt the mere humble servant of architecture and sculpture. We must not dream of comparing it with our own, or even with that of the Greeks; but if we take it simply for what it is, accepting it in the secondary place assigned to it, we cannot fail to recognise its unusual merits. Egyptian painting excelled in the sense of monumental decoration, and if we ever revert to the fashion of colouring the _façades_ of our houses and our public edifices, we shall lose nothing by studying Egyptian methods or reproducing Egyptian processes. [35] The late T. Deveria ingeniously conjectured that "Ba-en-pet" (iron of heaven) might mean the ferruginous substance of meteoric stones. See _Mélanges d'Archéologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne_, vol. i.-- A.B.E. [36] The traces of tools upon the masonry show the use of bronze and jewel-points.--A.B.E. [37] Many such trial-pieces were found by Petrie in the ruins of a sculptor's house at Tell el Amarna. [38] A similar collection was found by Mr. F. Ll. Griffith at Tell Gemayemi, in 1886, during his excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund. See Mr. Petrie's _Tanis_. Part II., Egypt Exploration Fund.--A.B.E. [39] Mr. Loftie's collection contains, however, an interesting piece of trial-work consisting of the head of a Ptolemaic queen in red granite.--A.B.E. [40] For pigments used at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, see Petrie's _Medum_. [41] The rose-coloured, or rather crimson, flesh-tints are also to be seen at El Kab, and in the famous speos at Beit el Wally, both _tempo_ Nineteenth Dynasty.--A.B.E. 3.--WORKS OF SCULPTURE.