We cannot give descriptions of all the twenty _paterae_,[777] pronounced by the best critics to be Phoenician, which are contained in the museums of Europe and America.

Excellent representations of most of these works of art will be found in Longperier's "Musee Napoleon III.," in M.
Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie Phenicienne," and in the "Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquite" of MM.

Perrot et Chipiez.

The bowls brought from Larnaca, from Curium, and from Amathus are especially interesting.[778] We must, however, conclude our survey with a single specimen of the most elaborate kind of _patera_; and, this being the case, we cannot hesitate to give the preference to the famous "Cup of Praeneste," which has been carefully figured and described in two of the three works above cited.[779] The cup in question consists of a thin plate of silver covered over with a layer of gold; its greatest diameter is seven inches and three-fifths.
The under or outside is without ornament; the interior is engraved with a number of small objects in low relief.

In the centre, and surrounded by a circle of beads, there is a subject to which we shall presently have to return.