The Intaglio in the Roman Empire.—The art of engraving in intaglio was also at a high level of excellence in the beginning of the Roman empire. This is to be inferred alike from the admirable portraits of the 1st century A.D., and from the number of signed gems bearing Roman artists’ names, such as Aulus, Gnaius and the like, which could hardly belong to any other period. It is impossible, however, to found any argument upon the artists’ signatures without taking into account the intricate questions of authenticity which are discussed in the following section.
Signed Gems.—The number of gems which have, or purport to have, the name of the artist inscribed upon them is very large. A great many of the supposed signatures are modern forgeries, dating from the period between 1724 (when the book of Stosch, Gemmae antiquae caelatae, scalptorum nominibus insignitae, first drew general attention to the subject) and 1833, when the multitude of forged signatures (about 1800 in number) in the collection of Prince Poniatowski made the whole pursuit ridiculous. It is known, however, that forged signatures were current before 1724 (see Stosch, p. xxi.), and in the period immediately following they were very numerous. Thus Laurence Natter (Méthode de graver en pierres fines (1754), p. xxx.) confesses that, whenever desired, he made copies. For example, he copied a Venus (Brit. Mus. No. 2296), converting the figure into a Danaë and affixing the name of Aulos which he found on the Venus. Cf. Mariette, Traité (1750), i. p. 101.
The question which of the multitude of supposed signatures can be accepted as genuine has been a subject of prolonged and intricate controversy. In the period immediately following the Poniatowski forgeries the extreme height of scepticism is represented by Koehler, who only acknowledged five gems (Koehler, iii. p. 206) as having genuine signatures. In recent years the subject has been principally dealt with by Furtwängler, whose conclusion is to admit a considerable number of gems rejected by his predecessors.
It must suffice here to point out a few general principles. In the first place a certain number of gems recently discovered have inscriptions which are undoubtedly genuine and which record the names of the engravers. The form of the signature may be a nominative with a verb, a nominative without a verb or a genitive. The artists in this class are Syries, Dexamenus, Epimenes and Semon, mentioned above, and a few others. Another group of gems which must be accepted consists of stones whose known history goes back to a period at which a forged inscription was impossible. Thus a bust of Athena in the Berlin Collection, signed by Eutyches, was seen by Cyriac of Ancona in 1445. A glass cameo signed by Herophilus, son of Dioscorides, now at Vienna, was, in the 17th century, in the monastery of Echternach, where it had probably been from old times. The portrait of Julia, daughter of Titus, by Euodos (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale) was formerly a part of a reliquary presented to the abbey of St Denis by Charles the Bold. Another group of undoubtedly genuine signatures occurs on cameos (in stone and paste) which have the inscriptions in relief, and therefore as part of the original design. Such are the works of Athenion, and of Quintus, son of Alexas.
For the great majority of signed gems which do not fall into these categories the reader must refer to the discussions of Furtwängler and others (see Bibliography below). It must suffice to say that Furtwängler arrives at the result that we have in all genuine signatures of at least fifty ancient gem-engravers.
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| Fig. 11.—Christian Gem. The Good Shepherd. (Brit. Mus.) | Fig. 12.—Gnostic Gem. (Brit. Mus.) | Fig. 13.—Sassanian Gem. (Brit. Mus.) |
Gem-Engraving in the Later Empire.—In the following centuries the art of intaglio engraving, which was still at a high degree of perfection in the first century of the Roman empire, became more mechanical. The designs have a very characteristic appearance, due to the method of production with rough and hasty strokes of the wheel only. A collection of gems found in England, such as that in the possession of the corporation of Bath, shows the feeble character in particular of the gems current in the provinces. Except in portraiture, and in grylli or conceits, in which various things are combined into one, often with much skill, the subjects were as a rule only variations or adaptations of old types handed down from the Greeks. When new and distinctly Roman subjects occur, such as the finding of the head on the Capitol, or Faustulus, or the she-wolf with the twins, both the stones and the workmanship are poor. In such cases, where the design stirs a genuine national interest, it may happen that very little of artistic rendering will be acceptable rather than otherwise, and much more is this true when the design is a symbol of some article of faith, as in the early Christian gems. There both the art and the material are at what may be called the lowest level. The usual subjects on the early Christian gems are the fish, anchor, ship, dove, the good shepherd, and, according to Clemens, the lyre. Under the Gnostics, however, with whom there was more of speculation than of faith, symbolism was developed to an extent which no art could realize without the aid of writing. A gem was to them a talisman more or less elaborate with long, but for the most part quite unintelligible, engraved formulae. The difficulty is to make out how the stones were carried; many specimens exist, but none show signs of mounting. The materials are usually haematite or jasper. As regards the designs, it is clear that Egyptian sources have been most drawn upon. But the symbolism is also largely associated with Mithraic worship. The name Abraxas, or more correctly Abrasax, which, from its frequency on these gems, has led to their being called also “Abraxas gems,” is, when the Greek letters of which it is composed are treated as Greek numerals, equal to 365, the number of days in a year, and the same is the case with ΜΕΙΘΡΑΣ.
More interesting, from the occasionally forcible portraiture and the splendour of some of the jacinths employed, are the Sassanian gems, which as a class may be said to represent the last stage of true gem-engraving in ancient times.
The art of cameo-engraving, which, as we have seen, attained its greatest splendour at the beginning of the empire, followed on the whole a similar course. It waned in the early part of the 3rd century after the death of the emperor Severus, but under the first Christian emperor Constantine it enjoyed a brief period of revival. Fine cameo portraits of Constantine are extant; and it was during or shortly after his reign that Christian Scripture subjects began to appear on cameos. That class of subjects constituted the staple of such work—generally rude and artistically debased—as continued to be cultivated under the Byzantine empire down to nearly the epoch of the Renaissance. From the Byzantine period downward one peculiarity of gem-engraving becomes noticeable. Cameo-work as compared with intaglios in classical times was rare and infrequent, but now and onwards the opposite is the case, intaglio-sinking having almost died out, and cameos being chiefly produced. Commercial intercourse with the East still secured for the engravers a supply of magnificent sardonyxes, although blood-stone and other non-banded stones were very commonly used for works in relief. Cameos during the long dark ages were used chiefly for the decoration of reliquaries and other altar furniture, and as such their designs were purely ecclesiastical or scriptural. To this period also belongs the class of complimentary or motto cameos, which, containing only inscriptions and an ornamental border, executed in nicolo stones, were used as personal gifts and adornments.