Women in Art.--Kind of Painting most practiced by them.--Feminine Employments in early Ages.--The fair Egyptians.--Women of Assyria and Babylon.--Grecian Women.--Sculpture and Painting in Greece.--The Daughter of Dibutades.--The Lover’s Profile.--The first Bas-relief. --Timarata.--Helena.--Anaxandra.--Kallo.--Cirene.--Calypso.--Other Pupils of Grecian Art.--The Roman Women.--The Paintress Laya.--Lala.--Influence of Christianity on Art.--Adornment rejected by the early Christians.--Art degraded for Centuries.--Female Influence among the Nations that rose on the Ruins of Rome.--Wise and clever Princesses.--Anna Comnena.--The first Poetess of Germany.--The first Editress of a Cyclopædia.--The Art of Illuminating.--Nuns employed in copying and painting Manuscripts.--Agnes, Abbess of Quedlinburg.--Princesses at work.--Convent Sisters copying and embellishing religious Works.--The Nuns’ Printing-press.--The first Sculptress, Sabina von Steinbach.--Her Works in the Cathedral of Strasburg.--Elements that pervade the Sculpture of the Middle Ages.--Painting of the Archbishop crowning Sabina. “Men have not grudged to women,” says a modern writer, “the wreaths of literary fame. No history of literature shows a period when their influence was not apparent, when honors were not rendered to them;” and the social condition of woman has been generally allowed to measure the degree of intellectual culture in a nation. Although in the realm of art her success is more questionable, she may yet claim the credit of having materially aided its progress. Woman is the type of the ornamental part of our life, and lends to existence the charm which inspires the artist, and furnishes him with an object for effort. Her native unconscious grace and beauty present the models which it is his highest merit to copy faithfully. A New England divine says, “Woman, like man, wants to make her thought a thing.” “All that belongs to the purely natural,” observes Hippel, “lies within her sphere.” The kind of painting, thus, in which the _object_ is prominent has been most practiced by female artists. Portraits, landscapes, flowers, and pictures of animals are in favor among them. Historical or allegorical subjects they have comparatively neglected; and, perhaps, a sufficient reason for this has been that they could not command the years of study necessary for the attainment of eminence in these. More have been engaged in engraving on copper than in any other branch of art, and many have been miniature painters.