In medieval times antique cameos were held in peculiar veneration on account of the belief, then universal, in their potency as medicinal charms. This power was supposed to be derived from their origin, of which two theories, equally satisfactory, were current. By the one they were held to be the work of the children of Israel during their sojourn in the wilderness (hence the name Pierres d’Israël), while the other theory held them to be direct products of nature, the engraved figures pointing to the peculiar virtue lodged in them. Interpreters less mystically inclined found Biblical interpretations for the subjects. Thus the cameo of the Sainte Chapelle was supposed to represent the triumph of Joseph in Egypt. A cameo with Poseidon, Athena and her serpent was Adam and Eve.
The revival of the glyptic arts in western Europe dates from the pontificate of the Venetian Paul II. (1464-1471), himself an ardent lover and collector of gems, to which passion, indeed, it is gravely affirmed he was a martyr, having died of a cold caught by the multiplicity of gems exposed on his fingers. The cameos of the early part of the 16th century rival in beauty of execution the finest classical works, and, indeed, many of them pass in the cabinets of collectors for genuine antiques, which they closely imitated. The Oriental sardonyx was not available for the purposes of the Renaissance artists, who were consequently obliged to content themselves with the colder German agate onyx. The scarcity of worthy materials led them to use the backs of ancient cameos, or to improve on classical works of inferior value executed on good material, and probably to this cause must also be assigned the development of shell cameos, which are rarely found, of an older period.
| Fig. 14—Muse, by Pichler. (Brit. Mus.) |
Among the means of distinguishing antique cameos from cinquecento work, the kind of stone is one of the best tests, the classical artists having used only rich and warm-tinted Oriental stones, which further are frequently drilled through their diameter with a minute hole, from having been used by their original Oriental possessors in the form of beads. The cinquecento artists also, as a rule, worked their subjects in high relief, and resorted to undercutting, no case of which is found in the flat low work of classical times. The projecting portions of antique work exhibit a dull chalky appearance, which, however, fabricators learned to imitate in various ways, one of which was by cramming the gizzards of turkey fowls with the gems. Another index of antiquity is found in the different methods of working adopted in classical and Renaissance times. The tools employed by the Renaissance engraver were the drill and the wheel, while the ancient artist also employed the diamond point.
The gem-engraver’s art again during the 18th century revived under an even greater amount of encouragement from men of wealth and rank. In this last period the names of engravers who succeeded best in imitating classical designs were Natter, Pichler (fig. 14), and the Englishmen Marchant (fig. 15) and Burch. Compared with Greek gems, it will be seen that what at first sight is attractive as refined and delicate is after all an exaggerated minuteness of execution, entirely devoid of the ancient spirit. The success with which modern engravers imposed on collectors is recorded in many instances, of which one may be taken as an instructive type. In the Bibliothèque Nationale is a gem (Chabouillet’s catalogue, No. 2337), familiarly known as the signet of Michelangelo, the subject being a Bacchanalian scene. So much did he admire it, the story says, that he copied from it one of the groups in his paintings in the Sistine chapel. The gem, however, is evidently in this part of it a mere copy from Michelangelo’s group, and therefore a subsequent production, probably by da Pescia.
| Fig. 15.—Nereid and Sea-bull by Marchant. (Brit. Mus.) |
In our own day the engraving of cameos has practically ceased to be pursued as an art. Roman manufacturers cut stones in large quantities to be used as shirt-studs and for setting in finger-rings; and in Rome and Paris an extensive trade is carried on in the cutting of shell cameos, which are largely imported into England and mounted as brooches by Birmingham jewelry manufacturers. The principal shell used is the large bull’s-mouth shell (Cassis rufa), found in East Indian seas, which has a sard-like underlayer. The black helmet (Cassis tuberosa) of the West Indian seas, the horned helmet (C. cornuta) of Madagascar, and the pinky queen’s conch (Strombus gigas) of the West Indies are also employed. The famous potter Josiah Wedgwood introduced a method of making imitations of cameos in pottery by producing white figures on a coloured ground, this constituting the peculiarity of what is now known as Wedgwood ware.
Gem Collectors.—The habit of gem-collecting is recorded first in the instance of Ismenias, a musician of Cyprus, who appears to have lived in the 4th century B.C. But though individual collectors are not again mentioned till the time of Mithradates, whose cabinet was carried off to Rome by Pompey, still it is to be inferred that they existed, if not pretty generally, yet in such places as Cyrene, where the passion for gems was so great that the thriftiest person owned one worth 10 minas, and where, according to Aelian (Var. hist. xii. 30), the skill in engraving was astonishing. The first cabinet (dactyliotheca) in Rome was that of Scaurus, a stepson of Sulla. Caesar is said to have formed six cabinets for public exhibition, and from the time of Augustus all men of refinement were supposed to be judges both of the art and of the quality of the stones.
In the middle ages the chief collections were incorporated in works of art in the church treasuries. The first collector of modern times was, as already mentioned, Pope Paul II., who was followed by a long succession of princely and noble collectors such as Lorenzo de’ Medici and the great earl of Arundel. The collection of the latter passed into the hands of the dukes of Marlborough and thence into the possession of Mr David Bromilow. The collection was finally dispersed by auction in June 1899.
In modern times the principal collections are contained in state museums. The cabinets of Vienna and of the Bibliothèque Nationale are incomparably rich in the historic cameos. Those of the British Museum and of Berlin are the strongest in their range over the whole field of the gem-engraver’s art.