The scenes from Joseph’s life are more deeply carved than the others, the figures are wonderfully characterized, the oriental faces of the Egyptians are framed in long plaits, like the Egyptian hair dressing on the monuments, which is even now to be seen on the Upper Nile. All these reliefs are a curious mixture of close observation of nature and servile imitations of classical types. The woman present at the sale of Joseph, holds her hand in her veil like many a stately figure in Roman art, but the meeting of Joseph with his old father is quite modern in its emotional force, the old man tremblingly totters forward into the arms of his stalwart young son, and one cannot help feeling irritated at the bystanders’ conventional gestures as they gaze on such a touching scene. Jacob’s wild distress (Fig. 13) is terribly realistic, and the contrasted stony despair of the bereaved Rachel is most dramatic. Rachel appears in other presentments of this subject, but the Bible narrative mentions her death some time before. The _provenance_ of this great monument is a very thorny question,[12] many writers notice the strongly marked oriental characteristics, and some infer that it was imported from Alexandria, which then had a flourishing school of artists and craftsmen. St. Maximian certainly visited Alexandria before he was made bishop, and he may afterwards have ordered the Throne to be made there, or brought over Alexandrian workmen. There is every reason to believe the story that the Emperor Heraklius brought over a carved ivory throne from Alexandria in the beginning of the next century. The difficulty of adopting this Alexandrian theory lies in the existence of an Italo-Byzantine school in Italy, which is proved by the number of pyxes and book covers, which seem to show nearly every step between the old Latin and the almost entirely Byzantine art of the Ravenna Throne. Of course many of these may have been influenced by the carvings on the Throne, but many are undoubtedly of earlier date. Any way, with the acceptance or rejection of this theory stands or falls the European origin of several other most important ivories: first and most important, the much-discussed Berlin diptych, representing on one leaf Christ as a middle-aged man, very similar in type to the John Baptist (Fig. 12), and on the others the Virgin, attended by wingless angels; Schmirnoff, by close examination of the border, which has been partially cut away, believes he has discovered the remains of a monogram similar to that on the front panel of the Throne. Also the plaque with the _Baptism of Christ_, in the British Museum, the Tongres diptych, the “Bateman” diptych, and one or two others which are closely related in style.