The Hellenic Portraits From the Fayum at Present in the Collection of Herr Graf With Some Remarks on Other Works of This Class, at Berlin and Elsewhere, Newly Studied and Appreciated (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Hellenic Portraits From the Fayum at Present in the Collection of Herr Graf With Some Remarks on Other Works of This Class, at Berlin and Elsewhere, Newly Studied and Appreciated In the spring of 1888 the author of these pages undertook the grateful task of introducing to a wider circle of lovers of art and antiquity certain examples, then but just arrived in Europe, of ancient Greek portraits with which a happy accident had made him familiar before they were known to other experts and students. These portraits, in fact, merit the consideration not merely of the archaeologist and the historian of art, but of every one interested in painting and its history; for they fill a gap in its records, and are not only curiosities of art, but, some of them, true and thorough works of art, as striking as they are curious, and appealing to our love of beauty no less than to our interest in the history of culture and in ethnographical research into what may be called the physiognomy of nations. The anticipations I expressed five years ago have been fully justified - that specialists would, like myself, undoubtedly devote themselves to a study of these works, and that artists would find in these remarkable portraits a pleasing surprise, a singular charm, and perhaps even some unexpected teaching. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."