A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.23

c14.s2.23

This first layer—which, according to our modern notions—promises no great permanence, was laid to a thickness varying from one-eighth to three-quarters of an inch, and on it an egg-shell coat of fine white plaster was spread. This skin of plaster, in fact, overlaid everything—mouldings, columns, carven ornaments, and figure sculptures—but, in the case of carved details, without the intervention of the coat of earthen rough-cast; and, from what remains, it is clear that the whole of each cave was thus plaster-coated and painted. The texture of the volcanic rock, which is at once hard, open, impervious to damp, and yet full of air-holes, is especially suitable for this treatment. Great pains were taken with the statues of Buddha; one in the small chamber to the right of the first floor of Cave VI is covered with a layer of the finest plaster one-eighth of an inch thick, so painted and polished that the face has the smoothness and sheen of porcelain.¹