As the bed-mould B represents, by the lines of the stain, similar mouldings carved in relief in other monuments, I felt I was safe in using the colours in such a way as best to represent the object it imitated. I have therefore placed the gold where, had the ornament been in relief and gold employed, gold must have been placed to have been seen to the best advantage, that is, on the convex surfaces. So of the other colours.
In colouring the fret C I have followed the same principle; if they took the trouble to paint so minute an ornament at such a height, we may be quite sure that they took every pains to make it as distinct as possible, and, therefore, in using blue and red alternately, I have endeavoured to make the lines of the fret more apparent.
I was led at once to adopt a blue ground for the frieze, occupying, as it does, the place of the usual frieze of triglyphs and metopes in other monuments where the blue ground predominated; I felt the Greek eye would have demanded it here had such an arrangement as that of our frieze existed on a Greek monument.
The red within the wreaths was necessary, both for general harmony, and also to prevent the eye passing through the wreaths, which would have been the case had the blue ground been uninterrupted.
The soffit of the cornice I have coloured red, because I have no doubt that wherever blue, red, and yellow or gold were used, this must always have been the place of the red; and I experienced great pleasure, when in speaking on this subject with M. Hittorff of Paris, he brought forth a fragment of a soffit from Selinus, which, as he held it in his hand, showed a surface perfectly white, but removing his hand from it, discovered a large patch of the strongest red still remaining on the surface of the preparatory coat of stucco with which the temple at Selinus was covered.
Known.
Unknown.
The boldest step I have taken is in colouring the capitals of the columns; the abacus E and the echinus F.