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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
In his Hellenistische Reliefbilder published from 1889 to 1894 Schreiber illustrated 131 objects, mostly relief panels, but also glass, stucco and drawings. His collection included most of the so-called landscape reliefs of any importance, and here lies its value for the modern student. Schreiber did not accompany this lithographic collection with a commentary and it is the intention of this article to present as much information as can be gathered about the objects illustrated.
Schreiber's other writings make it clear that he considered these objects as Hellenistic products of Alexandria. F. Wickhoff in his Wiener Genesis (translated by Mrs. A. Strong, 1900) held that landscape reliefs were a branch of Roman art. Thus began the controversy which still rages today over the origin of landscape reliefs. The protagonists have ranged themselves on the side of Schreiber or Wickhoff, with an occasional voice raised in support of Asia Minor as source of these reliefs (P. Perdrizet, 1906, RA, 225–35); at present the Alexandrianists seem to be dominant. The landscape reliefs themselves, however, have never before been studied thoroughly and arguments have largely been based on unjustifiable assumptions from similarity of subject matter between reliefs of unknown provenance.