Forms: 78 basse relieve, base relief, bas-relieve, 89 bass-relief, bas-relief. [a. F. bas-relief, ad. It. basso-rilievo, low RELIEF. Cf. BASSO-RELIEVO.]
1. Low relief; sculpture or carved work in which the figures project less than one half of their true proportions from the surface on which they are carved.
1696. Phillips, Base Relief embossd work. 1706, Basso Relievo, Bass or Low Relief when the work is low, flat, or but a little raised.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnotheo, Wks. 1721, III. 192. Upon the Frontispiece In bas-relieve the Story was impressd, Of Lazarus and Dives.
1755. Johnson, Bass-relief.
1843. Prescott, Mexico, IV. i. (1864), 205. Two statues of that monarch cut in bas-relief in the porphyry.
attrib. 1884. A. F. Oakey, in Harpers Mag., Feb., 350/1. The lithic forms must give place to a more bass-relief treatment of the whole structure.
2. concr. A sculpture or carving in low relief.
1667. Oldenburg, in Phil. Trans., II. 420. Excellent Pictures and Basse Relieves.
1762. H. Walpole, Vertues Anecd. Paint. (1786), II. 58. The basrelief of James I. on horseback.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 196. Bas-reliefs the figures of which almost step and struggle out of the marble.