The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

has white walls with yellow dado. The central picture facing Atrium represents Venus fishing; she holds the rod in the right hand, and, as usual, leans with the other hand on the seat, having the arm quite straight. A similar subject has already been described in cubiculum 2. Here the figures are larger and close together. Instead of Cupid, is a Genius,[59] with broad-spreading green wings. He holds a green branch in his right hand; his drapery purple. Venus is crowned with a diadem, white drapery hangs behind her left arm, and the lower part of her figure is covered by crimson folds with blue lining. The arrangement of sloping shields on each side is the same as in chamber 3. Above the chief painting is a landscape, with buildings, water and a boat. Over this little picture again is a Victory in a _biga_ or chariot, with the horses painted entirely in yellow. The figure of Victory holds the palm branch in her left, and extends the right arm, grasping a wreath. Her wings are wide spread, but very much distorted. When Cupid was banished from Olympus for his impertinence, it is said that his wings were taken from him and transferred to Victory. In early art many of the divinities were winged. Diana on the chest of Cypselus (Pausanias, book v., ch. 19,) and so also is she represented upon the celebrated Clitias vase, at Florence. Many of the large figures of the Assyrian palaces, evidently acting as priests or attendants, are provided with wings, but they are never seen using them. Hebe is represented winged upon the famous cup of Sosias at Berlin, but these all belong to the undeveloped period of art. Among the Athenians Victory was represented unwinged--_Apteros_. After the battle of Marathon, Minerva is fabled to have confined Victory to her favourite spot, the Acropolis, by depriving her of her wings. A celebrated wooden statue of Wingless Victory, _Niké Apteros_, was at Athens, and a copy of it made by Calamis was sent to Olympia by the Mantineans. At Athens was the celebrated little temple of Wingless Victory, some of the sculptures from which are described in No. 57 of Greek Court catalogue. The right hand of the great ivory statue by Phidias, in the Parthenon, held a figure of Victory, Greek Court catalogue, pp. 29 and 30. To return to the painted Victory in this apartment. The highly decorated bar which seems attached to the collars of the horses is very peculiar. The gathering of the mane into a knot on the heads of the horses, and their breast collars are exactly like those on the carved lid of the Chimæra tomb from Xanthus, now in the British Museum. The top knot of the horses may be seen in several antique sculptures from Naples and Florence, Nos. 69 and 71 of Greek Catalogue, and seems to have been originally an eastern custom. The body of the chariot is quite plain. The horses viewed in front are very clumsily foreshortened. This group has been engraved in Mus. Bor., vol. xiv., tav. 45. On the light hand wall is a little compartment of a winged Cupid, with pedum and basket, running from a sitting lion. These paintings are all from the House of the Girl playing the Double-flute, called della Sonatrice, discovered in 1847 (H.B. p. 353). [59] Called in Mr. Falkener’s book, p. 49, Victory.