Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks : $b with instructions for the connoisseur, and an essay on grace in works of art — John Shaqi
Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks : $b with instructions for the connoisseur, and an essay on grace in works of artWinckelmann, Johann Joachim
Philosophy
Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks : $b with instructions for the connoisseur, and an essay on grace in works of art
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim
Aesthetics -- Early works to 1800; Art -- Philosophy; Art, Greek
Among the Egyptian Mummies of the royal cabinet, there are two preserved
perfectly entire, and not in the least damaged, viz. the bodies of a
man and woman. The former, among all those that were brought into, and
publickly known in Europe, is perhaps the only one of its kind; on
account of an inscription thereon, which none of those who have written
on Mummies, except Della Valle alone, discovered on those bodies; and
Kircher, among all the drawings of Mummies communicated to him, and
published in his Oedipus, has but one, (the same which Della Valle had
been possessed of,) with an inscription; though his wooden cut[76] is as
faulty as all the copies made afterwards[77]. On that Mummy there are
these letters ΕΥ✠ΥΧΙ.
This same inscription is on the royal Mummy, of which I propose to give a
brief account, and in examining which I have employed all my attention,
that I might be certain of its being genuine, and not drawn by a modern
hand from the inscription of Della Valle: for ’tis well known, that those
bodies frequently pass through the hands of Jews. But the letters are
evidently drawn with the same blackish colour with which the face, hands,
and feet are stained. The first letter on our Mummy has the form of a
large Greek ϵ, expressed by Della Valle with an E angular, the other not
being usual in printing-presses.
All the four Mummies of the royal cabinet being bought at Rome, I
proposed to examine whether the Mummy with the inscription, was that
which Della Valle was possessed of, and found that both the entire royal
Mummies were exact resemblances of those described by him.
Both, besides the linnen bandages, of a Barracan-texture, rolled
innumerable times around the bodies, are wrapt up in several (and,
according to an observation made in England[78], in three) kinds of
coarser linnen; which, by particular bandages of the girdle-kind, is
fastened in such a manner as to involve even the smallest prominence of
the face. The first covering is a nice bit of linnen, slightly tinged
with a certain ground, much gilt, decked with various figures, and with
a painted one of the deceased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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