vine and by ivy, bow before it, whilst from the ground spring small trees and reeds, among which wild animals run in and out. [Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [LOUVRE, PARIS 17. TRIPTYCH D’HARBAVILLE Byzantine, tenth century] The trees may be contrasted with the fruitful olives on the Bargello plaque of the Ascension (Fig. 18). The composition of this scene is grand in character, in spite of its small size, and there is great freedom of movement in the lower group, each pose being cleverly characterized; the grouping is scarcely freer in the Italian conception of this subject, and the upraised hand of the apostle on the Virgin’s left is to be seen, centuries later, in the famous “Assumption of the Virgin” by Titian. There are many other plaques with scenic pictures. The elaborate carving of the _Death of the Virgin_ is still fixed to the Bamberg Missal, which belonged to Cunigunda, wife of the Emperor Henry II. (1002-1028). The scene is crowded, and takes place under a richly pierced canopy. Christ holds the Infant Soul of the Virgin, whilst two angels with veiled hands fly down to receive it. Perhaps the most beautiful of all these pictorial sculptures is a diptych now unfortunately divided. Each leaf has two scenes, the first, representing the _Holy Women kneeling before the risen Christ_ and the _Resurrection_, is at Dresden, while the other, with the _Crucifixion_ and the _Deposition_, is in the Provincial Museum at Hanover. The various scenes are treated with much freedom, and the proportions are excellent. It is enough to glance at the appalling length of the two Maries in a twelfth century plaque with the _Resurrection_ (Bargello) to realize how much we have to be thankful for in the earlier periods. [Illustration: DR. H. GRAEVEN PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE 18. ASCENSION Byzantine, eleventh century] There are a large number of triptychs[15] all more or less of the Harbaville school. A fine one at the Louvre of _Christ_ and _St. Theodore_ has lost the second wing, and of another still finer one, only the splendidly carved wings remain, widely separated now, one being in Vienna and the other in the Doge’s Palace at Venice. Several of these little shrines inclose a group of the _Virgin and Child_, the two most beautiful being in the Episcopal Museums of Utrecht and Liège. Count Strogonoff in his interesting collection at Rome has a particularly fine seated _Virgin and Child_. The whole pose is most pleasing and the Infant Christ on her knee has a far more childish face than usual, the Holy Child being more often like a little man, raising his hand to bless with exaggerated dignity. But the ineradicable love of ostentation and luxury leads the artist to diminish the importance of a really dignified figure by adding a mass of gigantic and over-decorated accessories, and the legs of the throne are wrought with more exactitude than he bestows on the robe of the central figure.