The Principal Conventions in Egyptian Sculpture. ^21 these lines, and the whole formed a rough guide for the hand of the designer/ The fact that these lines and squares are only found upon a small number of paintings and bas-reliefs does not prove that their employment was in any way exceptional. It is probable that one of the two processes was generally used, but that the colour spread both upon figures and ground hides their traces. The few pictures in which they are now to be traced were never completed. Most of the painters and sculp- tors to whom the decorations of tombs and temples were confided must have had recourse to these contrivances, but here and there were artists who had sufficient skill and self-confidence to make their sketches directly upon the w^all itself. More than one in- stance of this has been dis- covered in those Theban tombs whose decorations were left un- finished. In a few cases the design has been made in red chalk by a journeyman and after- wards corrected, in black chalk, by the master. - As the bas-relief was thus preceded by a sketch which was more or less liable to modi- fication, it would seem probable that a similar custom obtained in the case of the statue. It ap- pears especially unlikely that those great figures in the harder ^ Prisse, Histoire de F Art Egyptien, text, p. 123. Lepsius, Denknmler, pi. 65. - Upon the preparation of the bas-relief, see Belzoxi, Narrative of the Operation';, etc. p. 175. Prisse gives several interesting examples of these corrected designs, among others a fine portrait of Seti I. {Histoire, etc. vol. ii.) " Examples of these corrections are to be found in sculpture as well as in painting. Our examination of the sculptures at Karnak showed that the artist did not always follow the first sketch traced in red ink, but that as the work progressed he modified it, and allowed himself to be guided, to some extent, by the effects which he saw VOL. If. T T Fig. 259. — Design transferred by squaring. From Pri-se.
