2-913-623 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Crystal Palace - Entrance to the Egyptian Court from the Nave, by the Avenue of Lions, 1854. Replicas of Ancient Egyptian sculpture and architecture at Sydenham in south London. 'We approach the Egyptian Court from the Nave by an avenue of lions, cast from a pair brought from Egypt by Lord Prudhoe (the present Duke of Northumberland), and we have before us the outer walls and columns of a temple, not taken from any one particular structure, but composed from various sources, to illustrate Egyptian columns and capitals during the Ptolemaic period, somewhere about 300 years B.C. On the walls are coloured sunk-reliefs showing a King making offerings or receiving gifts from the gods. The capitals or heads of the columns are palm and lotus leaved; some showing the papyrus in its various stages of development, from the simple bud to the full-blown flower'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.