As for their
date, it is the prevailing opinion that they belong to the second
century after Christ and later, though an attempt has been made to
carry the best of them back to the second century B.C.
The finest collection of these portraits is one acquired by a
Viennese merchant, Herr Theodor Graf. They differ widely in
artistic merit; our illustrations show three of the best. Fig. 194
is a man in middle life, with irregular features, abundant, waving
hair, and thin, straggling beard. One who has seen Watts's picture
of "The Prodigal Son" may remark in the lower part of this face a
likeness to that. Fig. 195 is a charming girl, wearing a golden
wreath of ivy-leaves about her hair and a string of great pearls
about her neck. Her dark eyes look strangely large, as do those of
all the women of the series; probably the effect of eyes naturally
large was heightened, as nowadays in Egypt, by the practice of
blackening the edges of the eyelids. Fig. 196 is the most
fascinating face of all, and it is artistically unsurpassed in the
whole series.
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