[Page Decoration] VASES. Painted vases may be considered as the most curious, the most graceful, and the most instructive remains that have come down to us from ancient times. The beauty of the forms, the fineness of the material, the perfection of the varnish, the variety of the subjects, and their interest in an historical point of view give painted vases a very important place among the productions of the arts of the ancients. Painted vases have been collected with great eagerness ever since they have been known, and the most remarkable have been engraved by celebrated artists, and explained by profound archæologists. Modern art and archæology have obtained from them beautiful models and important information. They were known for the first time in the seventeenth century. Painted vases were, to a considerable extent, objects of traffic and of export from one country to another. They may be generally traced to Athens as the original place of exportation. Corinth also exported vases, for the products of Corinthian potters have been found in Sicily and Italy, and there can be no doubt that Corinth had established an active trade in works of art with the Greek colonies all over the Mediterranean. Athenian vases were carried by the Phœnicians, the commercial traders of the ancient world, as objects of traffic to the remotest parts of the then known world. In the Periplus of Scylax, the Phœnicians are mentioned as exchanging the pottery of Athens for the ivory of Africa. They were, in fact, the ornamental china of the ancient world. [Illustration: ETRUSCAN VASE.]