Among examples of antique glyptic art, by referring to my late work on “Engraved Gems: Their Place in the History of Art,” you will find an extended notice of the superb ancient cameo on chrysoprase of Jupiter Ægiochus. It is the eighth of importance in the remarkable antique cameos that have been preserved from the early centuries after Christ. It is of remarkable dimensions, being 167 millimetres in height by 130 millimetres in breadth.
It is of the close of the epoch of Marcus Aurelius or the earlier years of the reign of Commodus. The style is that of the Græco-Roman art. The work is very beautiful for that epoch, and there rests in this head of the master of the gods an accent of grandeur in which one feels the reflection of the original Greek of the better centuries, imitated here by the engraver of the Græco-Roman age.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
JUPITER ÆGIOCHUS.
It is an interesting circumstance, which merits particular attention, that the cameo Zulian coming from Ephesus and this Jupiter Ægiochus are certainly of the workmanship of Asia Minor.
Early in this century this cameo made part of the celebrated Northwick Collection of England. Afterwards it was acquired by a wealthy connoisseur in France, and later passed into the possession of M. Feuardent, Paris, when, with his permission, an engraving of it appeared, with five quarto pages of text and notes, in the Gazette Archæologique, Paris, 1877, edited by Baron J. De Witte, Membre de l’Institut and François Lenormant.
M. Adrien Longperier, the distinguished glyptologist and savant of the Institut de France, some thirty years ago made a study of this gem, and seriously contemplated its acquisition for France; he urged the French Government to authorize its purchase for the collection in the Salle des Pierres gravées in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, or for the Museum of the Louvre. Several other museums also negotiated for its purchase, but the late owner being firm in his demand, the price caused them to delay, and now it belongs to America, being part of my collection.
The Triumph of Constantine.
Among the most important and interesting antique gems in my collection is one engraved when Constantine held the Roman Empire in Byzantia, which came into the possession of the Court of Russia.