A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s3.2

c16.s3.2

'The lower half of the ornament consists of a fanciful design, on either side of which is an infant Eros riding on a winged sea-lion, with four chains and bells suspended beneath him. . . . The Erotes and sea-monsters appear to have been cast in a mould, and afterwards chased with a graver's tool; the hair of the boys is very carefully worked, and falls on their shoulders in a natural row of ringlets. Their wings, and the wings and ears of the monsters, both front and back, were inlaid with paste, a fragment of which, of blue-green colour, still remains in one of the ears. A very similar figure of a boy riding on a sea-lion, but without wings, occurs on a golden plaque discovered with a great many other relics on the northern bank of the Oxus in ancient Persia [and now in the British Museum]. . . . As to the influences traceable in the designs and technique of these articles of jewellery, the seemingly Western features which they exhibit . . . are the Erotes riding on sea-lions, the granulated decoration, and the clusters of gold drops; while the Eastern and Indian elements are discernible in the