All the four enseignes last mentioned are examples of the method of executing these ornaments described in Cellini's famous treatise[148] on the goldsmith's art, where he extols the goldsmith Caradosso as a craftsman skilled above all others in their production. The work is repoussé; the St. John's head being also worked into full relief by this process, and then applied to the dish. Such repoussé figures were frequently attached to an independent background formed of lapis-lazuli, agate, or some other precious substance.
The revival of the art of gem-engraving led to a large demand for cameos—themselves more suitable for decorative purposes than intaglios—as personal ornaments. "It was much the custom of that time," says Vasari, writing of the gem-engraver Matteo del Nassaro, "to wear cameos and other jewels of similar kind round the neck and in the cap." Matteo produced many admirable cameos for use as enseignes for Francis I and the nobles of his Court, almost every one of whom carried on their persons some example of his work. On jewels of this kind parts of the figures were occasionally executed in cameo, and the remainder in gold, chased and enamelled; but more frequently figures were worked entirely in hard material, and then, in accordance with the artistic taste of the time, enclosed in borders, enriched with enamel and jewel-work of the most exquisite variety of design. Unhappy vicissitudes, like those which the gems at Florence have undergone,[149] have in course of time despoiled many a cameo of its rich setting. Yet in the great public gem collections of London, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, as well as in the cabinets of private collectors, are to be found a number of beautiful examples of the jeweller's art at its best period, which have been preserved on account of the cameos they served to adorn.
The finest enseigne that displays cameo and enamelled gold worked together in combination is Cellini's exquisite "Leda and the Swan," in the Münz-und-Antiken-Kabinet at Vienna. The head and the torso of the figure of Leda is in cameo—the latter being an antique fragment; the remainder of the jewel is of gold, enriched with enamels, diamonds, and rubies. This is considered to be the actual jewel executed by Cellini at Rome about 1524 for the Gonfalonier Gabriele Cesarini[150] (Pl. XXIX, 5).
By far the most extensive collection of mounted cameos is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The majority of these jewels which follow the cartouche form are presumably of French fabrique, though a decision as to their precise provenance is here, as ever, a matter of considerable difficulty. Among brooches or medallions for the hat, whose purpose is clearly indicated by the presence of a pin or holes for attachment, the most noticeable are four, numbered respectively 595, 465, 513, and 1002. The first, bearing the head of a negro in agate, encircled with a band of rubies, has an outer border of open scrollwork, of white, heightened with red enamel. On each side and below is a table diamond; and above, a crown set with triangular faceted diamonds ([Pl. XXIX, 4]). Lack of space precludes detailed reference to the other three enseignes de chaperon. They are equally attractive, both on account of their design and the high quality of their workmanship.
Those unable to afford such costly ornaments wore hat-brooches or medallions in cheaper materials, either bronze or copper. These were cast or stamped, and not, like the more magnificent enseignes of gold, executed by the repoussé process. The work of the earlier medallists was produced by means of casting, the medallions being afterwards delicately chased. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, medallists, who, it may be remembered, were mostly jewellers and gem-engravers as well, executed engraved dies, from which their medallions were struck instead of cast. The majority of smaller medallions so generally worn as hat-badges were multiplied by the newer process of stamping, and pierced with holes for attachment to the head-dress. They were afterwards gilded and occasionally enriched with enamel. Further information about the cheaper class of enseignes is met with in Bernard Palissy's Art de la terre, according to which the enamellers of Limoges, owing to competition, had to supply figured hat-badges at trois sols la douzaine. "Which badges were so well worked and their enamels so well melted over the copper that no picture could be prettier." Brooches of even cheaper materials are alluded to by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost, when Biron and Dumain, ridiculing Holofernes, who acts as Judas in the pageant of the Nine Worthies, exclaim:—
Biron. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.
Dumain. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.
Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.
The fashion for enseignes lasted until about the second quarter of the seventeenth century. During this later period they were generally worn in the hats of persons of wealth and distinction, in the form of a cluster of precious stones[151] ([Pl. XXXIV, 3]); while the enseignes with figured compositions appear to have fallen into disuse. The remarkable letter addressed by James I to Charles and Buckingham in Spain, in 1623, deals chiefly with jewelled hat-brooches of this kind ([p. 300]). Hat-bands richly jewelled were likewise worn; and among the jewels sent to Spain for the use of the Prince was a magnificent hat-band "garnished with 20 diamonds set in buttons of gold in manner of Spanish work." It was made up of the following stones, representing every mode of cutting employed at the time: 8 four-square table diamonds, 2 six-square table diamonds, 2 eight-square table diamonds, 2 four-square table diamonds cut with facets, 2 large pointed diamonds, 1 fair heart diamond, and 3 triangle diamonds.[152]
AIGRETTES
At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century an aigrette was often worn in the hat, a jewelled brooch being employed to hold it. The latter was sometimes in the form of a pipe or socket into which the stems of the feathers were inserted. A fine example of this class of ornament, discovered at Lauingen in the coffin of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (d. 1604), is now preserved with the rest of the jewels of the same family in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. It is in the shape of a heart open-worked and enriched with enamel, and has in the centre the letters D.M.—initials of his wife Dorothea Maria—set with rubies. Behind is a tube for the reception of an aigrette of herons' feathers ([Pl. XXX, 3]).