[Illustration: FIG. 268.--Painting at Beni-Hassan. Champollion, pl. 377 _ter_.]
[Illustration: FIG. 269.--Painting at Thebes. From Horeau.]
[Illustration: FIG. 270.--Painting at Thebes. From Prisse.]
In the whole series of Egyptian wall-paintings I know of nothing which is more truly pictorial in character than this picture. A careful study of it might well lead us to believe that its painter deliberately set himself to cast off traditional methods, and to obtain all the effect that the skilful use of colour can give. But the seed thus cast did not spring up. Theban painting is not an advance upon that of Beni-Hassan. It hardly ever attempts the full face. It is only here and there that we can point to a work in which the brush seems to have dwelt upon a few details that would be rendered in a more summary fashion by the chisel. The mandore player in Fig. 270, who comes from the same hypogeum at Abd-el-Gournah as the Amenophis III. upon the knees of a goddess in Fig. 24, is one of these rare instances. The hair, plaited into narrow tresses and retained in place by a long comb, is carried out with quite unusual care. The areolæ of the breasts are very clearly marked, a detail which Prisse says he never met with elsewhere.[350]
[350] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_, text, p. 424.
[Illustration: FIG. 271.--Harpist. From the _Description_.]
[Illustration: FIG. 272.--European prisoner. From Champollion.]
[Illustration: FIG. 273.--Head of the same prisoner.]
The slender proportions which we have already noticed as characteristic of this period are here strongly marked. They are also conspicuous in the figures in Plate II. This is a funerary scene. Three women stand before the defunct; one hands the cup for the libation, the two others play upon the flute and the harp respectively.
This fragment must have formed part of a funerary scene similar to that put before us in full by a painting in one of the tombs in the _Valley of Queens_ at Thebes. We there see women with offerings and others playing upon musical instruments, advancing towards the deceased, who has his daughter upon his knees and his wife seated at his right hand (Fig. 269).
The two often reproduced players upon the harp in the tomb of Rameses III. (long called _Bruce's Tomb_, after its discoverer) belong to the same class of representations (Fig. 271). Robed in a long black mantle, the musician abandons himself entirely to his music. The draughtsmanship of the arms is faulty, but the pose of the figure is natural and life-like. The harp is very richly ornamented; its base terminates in a royal head rising from a circlet of ample necklaces. The wood seems to be inlaid with colour.