When designing it, the craftsman gave free play to his fancy, borrowing forms of men, plants, and animals for its adornment.

Now it appears in the guise of a full-blown lotus; now it is a hedgehog; a hawk; a monkey clasping a column to his breast, or climbing up the side of a jar; a grotesque figure of the god Bes; a kneeling woman, whose scooped-out body contained the powder; a young girl carrying a wine- jar.

Once started upon this path, the imagination of the artists knew no limits.

As for materials, everything was made to serve in turn--granite, diorite, breccia, red jade, alabaster, and soft limestone, which lent itself more readily to caprices of form; finally, a still more plastic and facile substance--clay, painted and glazed.
[Ilustration: Fig.

218 .-- Perfume vase, alabaster.] [Illustration: Fig.