canonical colour for women (fig. 245). She is taken in a close-fitting garment trimmed down the front with a band of white embroidery. Round her neck she wears a necklace consisting of a triple row of gold pendants. Two golden bracelets adorn her wrists, and on her head she carries a wig with long curls. The right arm hangs by her side, the hand holding some object now lost, which was probably a mirror. The left arm is raised, and with the left hand she presses a lotus lily to her breast. The body is easy and well formed, the figure indicates youth, the face is open, smiling, pleasant, and somewhat plebeian. To modify the unwieldy mass of the headdress was beyond the skill of the artist, but the bust is delicately and elegantly modelled, the clinging garment gives discreet emphasis to the shape, and the action of the hand which holds the flower is rendered with grace and naturalness. All these are portraits, and as the sitters were not persons of august rank, we may conclude that they did not employ the most fashionable artists. They, doubtless, had recourse to more unpretending craftsmen; but that such craftsmen were thus highly trained in knowledge of form and accuracy of execution, shows how strongly even the artisan was influenced by the great school of sculpture which then flourished at Thebes. This influence becomes even more apparent when we study the knick-knacks of the toilet table, and such small objects as, properly speaking, come under the head of furniture. To pass in review the hundred and one little articles of female ornament or luxury to which the fancy of the designer gave all kinds of ingenious and novel forms, would be no light task. The handles of mirrors, for instance, generally represented a stem of lotus or papyrus surmounted by a full-blown flower, from the midst of which rose a disk of polished metal. For this design is sometimes substituted the figure of a young girl, either nude, or clad in a close-fitting garment, who holds the mirror on her head. The tops of hair-pins were carved in the semblance of a coiled serpent, or of the head of a jackal, a dog, or a hawk. The pin- cushion in which they are placed is a hedgehog or a tortoise, with holes pierced in a formal pattern upon the back. The head-rests, which served for pillows, were decorated with bas-reliefs of subjects derived from the myths of Bes and Sekhet, the grimacing features of the former deity being carved on the ends or on the base. But it is in the carving of perfume-spoons and kohl-bottles that the inventive skill of the craftsman is most brilliantly displayed. [Illustration: Fig. 246.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 247.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fib. 248.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 249.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 250.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 251.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 252.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 253.--Spoon.]