For the period immediately following that early prime to which the gems above described belong, our materials are less copious. Some of the finest examples are derived from the Greek tombs in the Crimea and South Russia. Reckoned among the best of the Crimean gems, and that is equivalent to saying among the best of all gems, are the following: (1) a burnt scarabaeoid with an eagle carrying off a hare; (2) a gem with scarab border and the figure of a youth seated playing on the trigonon, very much resembling the Woodhouse intaglio (both engraved, Compte rendu, 1871, pl. vi. figs. 16, 17). In these, and in almost all Greek gems belonging to this period of excellence, the material is of indifferent quality, consisting of agate, chalcedony or cornelian, just as in the older specimens. Brilliant colour and translucency are as yet not a necessary element, and accordingly the design is worked out solely with a view to its own artistic merit. The scarab tends to die out. The scarabaeoid in its turn is abandoned for the simple ring stone. The subjects chosen take by degrees a different character. Aphrodite (nude), Eros, children and women tend to replace the older and severer themes. The motives of 4th-century sculpture appear by degrees on the gems.
| Fig. 9.—Amethyst Pendant. (Brit. Mus.) |
Etruscan Gems.—At this point it is convenient to discuss the gem-engraving of the Etruscans, which came into being towards the close of the archaic period of Greek art. In the early Etruscan deposits, such as that of the Polledrara tomb in the British Museum (towards 600 B.C.), we find nothing except Phoenician imports of porcelain or stone scarabs, both strongly Egyptian in character. During the 6th century a few of the semi-Egyptian stones of Sardinia make their appearance. But in the latter part of the century these oriental products tend to die out, and we have in their place the native works of Etruscan artists. These engravings stand in the closest relation to Greek works of the close of the 6th century and many imported Greek scarabs also occur.
The Etruscan scarab has its beetle form more minutely engraved than that of the Greeks. It is further distinguished in the better examples, alike from the Greek and the Egyptian form, by a small border of a sort of petal ornament round the lower edge of the beetle. Like the earlier Greek scarabs it has the cable border round the design, but the border continued in use in Etruria when it had been abandoned in Greece. The scarabaeoid form does not occur in Etruscan deposits. Etruscan engraving begins when Greek art was approaching maturity, with studies, sometimes stiff and cramped, of the heroic nude form. Some of the Greek deities such as Athena and Hermes occur, together with the winged personages of Greek mythology. To the heroic types the names of Greek legend are attached, with modifications of form, such as ΤΥΤΕ for Tydeus, and ΚΑΠΝΕ for Capaneus. Sometimes the names are appropriate and sometimes they are assigned at random. The subjects include certain favourite incidents in the Trojan and Theban cycles (e.g. the death of Capaneus); myths of Heracles; athletes, horsemen, a few scenes of daily life. Certain schemes of composition are frequent. In particular, a figure too large for the field, standing and bending over, is made to serve for many types. The engraving of the finer Etruscan gems is minute and precise, marked with elegance and command of the material. Its fault is its want of original inspiration. Special mention must be made of a very numerous group of cornelian scarabs, roughly engraved for the most part with cup-shaped sinkings (whence they are known as gems a globolo tondo) roughly joined together by furrows. Notwithstanding their apparent rudeness, these gems are shown, by the conditions in which they are found, to be comparatively late works of the 4th century. Furtwängler ingeniously suggests that the rough execution was intended to emphasize the shining surfaces of the cup-sinkings, rather than to produce any particular intaglio subject. (For an elaborate classification of the Etruscan scarabs see Furtwängler, Geschichte, p. 170.)
The Cameos.—After the beginning of the regal period, in the 4th century B.C., the introduction of more splendid materials from the East was turned to good account by the development of the cameo, i.e. of gem-carving in relief (for the origin of the word see [Cameo]). But in its simpler forms the principle of the cameo necessarily dates from the beginning of the art. Thus a lion in rock-crystal was found in the very early royal tomb of Nagada (de Morgan, Recherches, Tombeau de Negadah, p. 193). The Egyptian scarab, on its rounded side, had been naturalistically carved in relief in beetle form. Steatite engravings in relief (notably the harvest festival vase from Hagia Triada) were found in the Cretan deposits. Subjects are found carved in the round in hard stone in Mycenaean graves. When we come to historical Greece and to Etruria the cameo of later times is anticipated by various attempts to modify the traditional form of the scarab. An example in cornelian was found at Orvieto in 1874 in a tomb along with vases dating from the beginning of the 5th century B.C., and it will be seen from the engraving of this gem (Arch. Zeit., 1877, pl. xi. fig. 3) that, while the design on the face is in intaglio, the half-length figure of a Gorgon on the back is engraved in relief. Compare a cornelian fragment, apparently cut from the back of a scarabaeoid, now in the British Museum. As further examples of the same rare form of cameo, the following gems in the British Museum may be mentioned:—(1) a cornelian cut from back of a scarabaeoid, with head of Gorgon surrounded by wings; (2) cornelian scarabaeoid: Gorgon running to left; on face of the gem an intaglio of Thetis giving armour to Achilles; (3) steatite scarabaeoid, already mentioned, signed by Syries, head of a satyr, full face, with intaglio of citharist. There is, however, no evidence at present available to show that the cameo proper had been introduced in Greece before the time of Alexander. The earliest examples found in known conditions are derived from Crimean tombs of the middle of the 3rd century B.C.
Among the most splendid of ancient cameos are those at St Petersburg and Vienna, each representing a monarch of the Diadochi and his consort (Furtwängler, pl. 53). There is much controversy as to the persons represented, but the cameos are probably works of the 3rd century.
The materials which ancient artists used for cutting into cameos were chiefly those siliceous minerals which, under a variety of names, present various strata or bands of two or more distinct colours. The minerals, under different names, are essentially the chalcedonic variety of quartz, and the differences of colour they present are due to the presence of variable proportions of iron and other foreign ingredients. These banded stones, when cut parallel to the layers of different colours, and when only two coloured bands—white and black, or sometimes white and black and brown—are present, are known as onyxes; but when they have with the onyx bands layers of cornelian or sard, they are termed sardonyxes. The sardonyx, which was the favourite stone of ancient cameo-engravers, and the material in which their masterpieces were cut, was procured from India, and the increased intercourse with the East after the death of Alexander the Great had a marked influence on the development of the art.
Akin in their nature to the great regal cameos, which from the nature of the case are cut on a nearly plane surface, are the cups and vases cut out of a homogeneous stone and therefore capable of being worked in the round. A few examples of such works survive. The most famous are the Farnese Tazza and the cup of the Ptolemies. The Tazza, which is now in the National Museum at Naples, was bought by Lorenzo de’ Medici from Pope Paul II. in 1471. It is a large shallow bowl of sardonyx, 8 in. in diameter. On its exterior surface is a Gorgoneion upon an aegis; in the interior is an allegorical design, relating to the Nile flood. The cup of the Ptolemies, formerly known as the cup of St Denis, is preserved in the Cabinet des Médailles of the French Bibliothèque Nationale. It is a cup 4¾ in. high and 51⁄8 in. in diameter, carved out of oriental sardonyx, and richly decorated with Dionysiac emblems and attributes in relief.
| Fig. 10.—Actaeon. Fragment of Sardonyx Cameo. (Brit. Mus.) |
The Cameo in the Roman Empire.—During the 1st century of the empire the engraver’s art alike in cameo and in intaglio was at a high degree of excellence. The artist in cameo took full advantage of his rich opportunities in the way of sumptuous materials, and of the requirements of an imperial court. The two most famous examples of this art which have come down to the present day are the Great Agate of the Sainte Chapelle in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and the Augustus Cameo in the Vienna Collection. The former was pledged among other valuables in 1244 by Baldwin II. of Constantinople to Saint Louis. It is mentioned in 1344 as “Le Camahieu,” having been sent in that year to Rome for the inspection of Pope Clement VI. It is a sardonyx of five layers of irregular shape, like all classical gems, measuring 12 in. by 10½ in. It represents on its upper part the deified members of the Julian house. The centre is occupied with the reception of Germanicus on his return from his great German campaign by the emperor Tiberius and his mother Livia. The lower division is filled with a group of captives in attitudes expressive of woe and deep dejection. The Vienna gem (Gemma augustea), an onyx of two layers measuring 85⁄8 in. by 7½, is a work of still greater artistic interest. The upper portion is occupied with an allegorical representation of the coronation of Augustus, the emperor being represented as Jupiter with Livia as the goddess Roma at his side. In the composition deities of Earth and Sea, and several members of the family of Augustus, are introduced; on the exergue or lower portion are Roman soldiers preparing a trophy, barbarian captives and female figures. This gem was in the 15th century at the abbey of St Sernin at Toulouse. According to tradition it had been placed there by Charlemagne. It came into the possession of the emperor Rudolph II. in the 16th century for the enormous sum of 12,000 gold ducats. The principal cameo in the collection of the British Museum was acquired at the final dispersion of the Marlborough Collection in 1899. It is a sardonyx measuring 8¾ in. by 6 in., and appears to represent a Roman emperor and empress in the forms of Serapis and Isis. Here also, in imperial times as in the Hellenistic period, side by side with the great cameos, we meet with works carved out in the round. Noted examples of such work are the Brunswick vase (at Brunswick), with the subject of Triptolemus; the Berlin vase with the lustration of a new-born imperial prince; and the Waddesdon vase in the British Museum, with a vine in relief set in a rich enamelled Renaissance mount. Hardly less precious than the cameos in sardonyx were the imitations carved out of coloured glass. The material was not costly, but its extreme fragility made the work of extreme difficulty. Examples of such work are the Barberini or Portland vase, deposited in the British Museum, with scenes supposed to be connected with the story of Peleus and Thetis; and the “vase of blue glass” from Pompeii, in the museum at Naples (see Mau and Kelsey, p. 408). The world’s great cameos, which are hardly more than a dozen in number, have not been found by excavation. They remained as precious objects in imperial and ecclesiastical treasuries and passed thence to the royal and national collections of modern Europe.