Cette figure, d'un beau dessin, est peinte en noir sur un fond blanc. Les traits de l'intérieur, au lieu d'être tracés à la pointe, le sont ici en relief noir, comme sur les figures rouges. This is the Duc de Luynes' description in 1840 of the technique of a lekythos, with a hoplite in black swinging his lance, wearing a helmet and holding a shield, in outline, and wounded by two arrows. It was then in his collection, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. This description, in which so distinguished an amateur can hardly have made a mistake, the object being in his own hands, is fully corroborated by Plate XVI. of his work, made as all those of this publication, not with a view to the subject, but in the intention of rendering the art. Here this design of black on black has been rendered by deeply bitten etched lines, standing out in velvet-black relief on an even tint of gray so dark that it looks black on the white paper. I need hardly add that a mechanical reproduction of this plate is impossible.

That this technique is not altogether unknown I shall soon show by a few examples.