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PLATE I.

SCARABEI FROM THE MERTENS-SCHAAFHAUSEN COLLECTION.1

1. FEMALE in a long robe lifting from the ground a child with deformed legs: probably Pallas and Ericthonius. Etruscan. Sard.

2. SEATED SPHINX, above is the royal vulture, in front a palm-tree. Phenician, Calcedony.

3. WARRIOR on horseback carrying a trophy. Etruscan. Sard.

4. GRYPHON devouring a stag. Greco-Italian. Sard.

5. CROUCHING SPHINX, in front two hawks, in the field various letters. Late Egyptian. Topaz.

6. NAKED MAN touching his ancle: perhaps an Apoxyomenos. Greco-Italian of the best period. Amethyst.

7. WARRIOR plunging a sword into a human head which he carries in his left hand: perhaps Tydeus with the head of Melanippus. Etruscan. Sard.

8. SILENUS reclining, in his hand the cantharus; a large crater in the field. A magnificent old Greek work. Calcedony.

9. FAUN reclining on a raft formed of six amphora fastened together, and holding up a wine-skin for a sail. Etruscan. Sard.

10. WARRIOR extracting an arrow from his leg: probably Diomede wounded by Paris. Greco-Italian. Sard.

11. BACCHUS in a long robe, in one hand a rhyton, in the other a myrtle-branch. Etruscan. Sard.

12. A WINGED MONSTER, resembling the winged boar on the coins of Clazomenae. Sard.

13. SEATED SPHINX, bold and spirited style, perhaps assignable to Chios. Agate. 14. WARRIOR in full armour kneeling (Tydeus in ambush), of the best Greco-Italian style. Sard.

15. SEATED FIGURE adoring an Egyptian king, advancing towards him. Fine GrecoEgyptian work. Obsidian.

16. CUPBEARER; in one hand the wine-strainer, in the other the ladle by which the wine was taken out of the crater. Late Etruscan. Obsidian.

17. NAKED WARRIOR with huge hemispherical shield and large sword. Etruscan. Sard.

18. NAKED YOUTH, in his hand a large broadsword, weeping over a sepulchral column (Castor at the tomb of Aphareus), on which is hung a discus and a strigil. Greco-Italian. Onyx.

19. WARRIOR bending a bow, behind a shield; perhaps Pandarus. Greco-Italian. Calcedony.

20. AN AGED MAN supporting a fainting youth, a female grasps his arm. This group is explained by Steinbüchel as Daedalus introducing Theseus to Ariadne. Greco-Italian work of the most perfect execution. Sard.-(Perhaps Electra and the Chorus tending the mad Orestes.)

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This collection is one of the most important ever formed by a private person. Madame Mertens-Schaafhausen of Bonn was already in possession of about 100 antique gems when, in 1839, she purchased the entire Praun Collection. This consisted of above 1000 engraved stones, and had been formed! during the second half of the 16th century by Paulus von Praun, a patrician of Nuremburgh, who died at Bologna in 1616, after having passed the greater part of his life in Italy. His cabinet of gems, left as an heir-loom to his family, had always been preserved intact until the time of its acquisition by Madame Mertens. She separated from it the Cinque

Cento works, and continued until her death to enrich the series with fresh acquisitions made in Germany, France, and Italy. At present it consists of 1876, comprising fragments and antique pastes (the latter comparatively few), or 1626 stones and 250 pastes.

In 1859 this Cabinet was purchased by the present owner, and was added to his already important series, amongst which are numbered some of the finest intagli of the Herz Collection, the Mæcenas, the Discobulus, &c.; and (from another source) the Triumph of Silenus, perhaps the most perfect antique composition known; all figured in these plates.

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