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.
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.
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| 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
