Engraved gem

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(Redirected from
Intaglio (sculpture)
)
Roman intaglio portrait of Caracalla in amethyst, once in the Treasury of Sainte-Chapelle. At some point it was adapted by adding an inscription and cross to represent Saint Peter
Relief cameo of a Roman prince. Perhaps 14th century.

An engraved gem, frequently referred to as an intaglio, is a small and usually

semi-precious gemstone that has been carved, in the Western tradition normally with images or inscriptions only on one face.[1] The engraving of gemstones was a major luxury art form in the Ancient world, and an important one in some later periods.[2]

Strictly speaking, engraving means carving in intaglio (with the design cut into the flat background of the stone), but

counter-relief, meaning the same as intaglio, is more likely to be used. Vessels like the Cup of the Ptolemies and heads or figures carved in the round are also known as hardstone carvings
.

Glyptics or glyptic art covers the field of small carved stones, including

seals, often mounted in a ring; intaglio designs register most clearly when viewed by the recipient of a letter as an impression in hardened wax. A finely carved seal was practical, as it made forgery more difficult – the distinctive personal signature
did not really exist in antiquity.

Technique

Gems were mostly cut by using abrasive powder from harder stones in conjunction with a hand-drill, probably often set in a

Naxos since antiquity. Some early types of seal were cut by hand, rather than a drill, which does not allow fine detail. There is no evidence that magnifying lenses were used by gem cutters in antiquity. A medieval guide to gem-carving techniques survives from Theophilus Presbyter. Byzantine cutters used a flat-edged wheel on a drill for intaglio work, while Carolingian ones used round-tipped drills; it is unclear where they learnt this technique from. In intaglio gems at least, the recessed cut surface is usually very well preserved, and microscopic examination is revealing of the technique used.[3] The colour of several gemstones can be enhanced by a number of artificial methods, using heat, sugar and dyes. Many of these can be shown to have been used since antiquity – since the 7th millennium BC in the case of heating.[4]

History

Antelopes attacked by birds: cylinder seal in hematite and its impression. Late Bronze Age II (maybe 14th century BC), from Cyprus in the Minoan period, following Near Eastern precedents.

The technique has an ancient tradition in the

Twelve tribes of Israel
.

Round or oval Greek gems (along with similar objects in bone and ivory) are found from the 8th and 7th centuries BC, usually with animals in energetic geometric poses, often with a border marked by dots or a rim.[6] Early examples are mostly in softer stones. Gems of the 6th century are more often oval,[7] with a scarab back (in the past this type was called a "scarabaeus"), and human or divine figures as well as animals; the scarab form was apparently adopted from Phoenicia.[8] The forms are sophisticated for the period, despite the usually small size of the gems.[9] In the 5th century gems became somewhat larger, but still only 2-3 centimetres tall. Despite this, very fine detail is shown, including the eyelashes on one male head, perhaps a portrait. Four gems signed by Dexamenos of Chios are the finest of the period, two showing herons.[10]

Reclining satyr, Etruscan c. 550 BC, 2.2 cm wide. Note the vase shown "sideways"; it is characteristic of early gems that not all elements in the design are read from the same direction of view.

Relief carving became common in 5th century BC Greece, and gradually most of the spectacular carved gems in the Western tradition were in relief, although the

Sassanian and other traditions remained faithful to the intaglio form. Generally a relief image is more impressive than an intaglio one; in the earlier form the recipient of a document saw this in the impressed sealing wax, while in the later reliefs it was the owner of the seal who kept it for himself, probably marking the emergence of gems meant to be collected or worn as jewellery pendants
in necklaces and the like, rather than used as seals – later ones are sometimes rather large to use to seal letters. However inscriptions are usually still in reverse ("mirror-writing") so they only read correctly on impressions (or by viewing from behind with transparent stones). This aspect also partly explains the collecting of impressions in plaster or wax from gems, which may be easier to appreciate than the original.

The cameo, which is rare in intaglio form, seems to have reached Greece around the 3rd century; the

Hellenistic styles, and can be hard to date, until their quality sharply declines at the end of the 2nd century AD. Philosophers are sometimes shown; Cicero refers to people having portraits of their favourite on their cups and rings.[13] The Romans invented cameo glass, best known from the Portland Vase
, as a cheaper material for cameos, and one that allowed consistent and predictable layers on even round objects.

Ottonian Cross of Lothair
(10th century with a 14 century base). Many antique engraved gems survived in such contexts.

During the European

St Albans Abbey, including one large Late Roman imperial cameo (now lost) called Kaadmau which was used to induce overdue childbirths – it was slowly lowered, with a prayer to St Alban, on its chain down the woman's cleavage, as it was believed that the infant would flee downwards to escape it,[14] a belief in accordance with the views of the "father of mineralogy", Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) on jasper.[15] Some gems were engraved, mostly with religious scenes in intaglio, during the period both in Byzantium and Europe.[16]

In the West production revived from the

rock crystal was the commonest material. The Lothair Crystal (or Suzanna Crystal, British Museum, 11.5 cm diameter), clearly not designed for use as a seal, is the best known of 20 surviving Carolingian large intaglio gems with complex figural scenes, although most were used for seals.[17] Several crystals were designed, like the Susanna Crystal, to be viewed through the gem from the unengraved side, so their inscriptions were reversed like the seals. In wills and inventories, engraved gems were often given pride of place at the head of a list of treasures.[18]

Some gems in a remarkably effective evocation of classical style were made in

Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. Meanwhile, the church led the development of large, often double-sided, metal seal matrices for wax seals that were left permanently attached to charters
and similar legal documents, dangling by a cord, though smaller ring seals that were broken when a letter was opened remained in use. It is not clear to what extent this also continued practices in the ancient world.

Renaissance revival

Warrior supporting dying comrade. 1st century BC or AD.

The late medieval French and Burgundian courts collected and commissioned gems, and began to use them for portraits. The British Museum has what is probably a seated portrait of John, Duke of Berry in intaglio on a sapphire, and the Hermitage has a cameo head of Charles VII of France.[19]

Interest had also revived in

Perugino, a pose used by Raphael.[22]

By the 16th century carved and engraved gems were keenly collected across Europe for dedicated sections of a

Rubens was a notable collector.[25]

Parallel traditions

Engraved gems occur in the

Koran
, and sometimes gems in the Western tradition just contain inscriptions.

Many Asian and Middle Eastern cultures have their own traditions, although for example the important Chinese tradition of carved gemstones and hardstones, especially

Other decoration
of the seal itself was not intended to be reproduced.

Iconography

the Gemma Augustea cameo, in two layered onyx; 19 × 23 cm.

The iconography of gems is similar to that of coins, though more varied. Early gems mostly show animals. Gods, satyrs, and mythological scenes were common, and famous statues often represented – much modern knowledge of the poses of lost Greek cult statues such as Athena Promachos comes from the study of gems, which often have clearer images than coins.[27] A 6th(?) century BC Greek gem already shows Ajax committing suicide, with his name inscribed.[28] The story of Heracles was, as in other arts, the most common source of narrative subjects. A scene may be intended as the subject of an early Archaic gem, and certainly appears on 6th century examples from the later Archaic period.[29]

Portraits of monarchs are found from the Hellenistic period onwards, although as they do not usually have identifying inscriptions, many fine ones cannot be identified with a subject. In the Roman Imperial period, portraits of the imperial family were often produced for the court circle, and many of these have survived, especially a number of spectacular cameos from the time of

Sack of Troy, of which the finest is by Dioskurides (Chatsworth House).[31]

Renaissance and later gems remain dominated by the Hellenistic repertoire of subjects, though portraits in contemporary styles were also produced.

Collectors

Cabinet des Médailles
, Paris)

Famous collectors begin with King

Jupiter in Rome.[32] Julius Caesar was determined to excel Pompey in this as in other areas, and later gave six collections to his own Temple of Venus Genetrix; according to Suetonius gems were among his varied collecting passions.[33] Many later emperors also collected gems. Chapters 4-6 of Book 37 of the Natural History of Pliny the Elder give a summary art history of the Greek and Roman tradition, and of Roman collecting. According to Pliny Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (praetor 56 BC) was the first Roman collector.[34]

As in later periods objects carved in the round from semi-precious stone were regarded as a similar category of object; these are also known as

Basilica of San Marco in Venice. Many of these retain the medieval mounts which adapted them for liturgical use.[35] Like the Coupe des Ptolémées, most objects in European museums lost these when they became objects of classicist interest from the Renaissance onwards, or when the mounts were removed for the value of the materials, as happened to many in the French Revolution
.

St. Petersburg
. The gem measures 15.7 x 11.8 cm.

The collection of 827 engraved gems of

Botticellis. Somewhat like Chinese collectors, Lorenzo had all his gems inscribed with his name.[38]

The

Empress Joséphine gave it to Alexander I of Russia after Napoleon's downfall, as a token of goodwill.[39] It remains disputed whether the cameo is Alexandrian work of the 3rd century BC, or a Julio-Claudian imitation of the style from the 1st century AD.[40]

Three of the largest cameo gems from antiquity were created for members of the

Basilique St-Sernin, Toulouse. In 1533, King François I appropriated it and moved it to Paris, where it soon disappeared around 1590. Not long thereafter it was fenced for 12,000 gold pieces to Emperor Rudolph II; it remains in Vienna, alongside the Gemma Claudia. The largest flat engraved gem known from antiquity is the Great Cameo of France, which entered (or re-entered) the French royal collection in 1791 from the treasury of Sainte-Chapelle
, where it had been since at least 1291.

1st century BC cameo with Troilus and Polyxena surprised by Achilles. Later mount.

In England, a false dawn of gem collecting was represented by

Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel. Later in the century William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, formed a collection of gems that is still conserved at Chatsworth.[42] In the eighteenth century a more discerning cabinet of gems was assembled by Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle, acting upon the advice of Francesco Maria Zanetti and Francesco Ficoroni; 170 of the Carlisle gems, both Classical and post-Classical, were purchased in 1890 for the British Museum
.

By the mid-eighteenth century prices had reached such a level that major collections could only be formed by the very wealthy; lesser collectors had to make do with collecting

Dominique Vivant to assemble a collection for Madame de Pompadour
.

Casts ("pastes") of gems in collector's cabinets

In the eighteenth century British aristocrats were able to outcompete even the agents for royal and princely collectors on the Continent, aided by connoisseur-dealers like Count

Sanssouci Palace to house his collections of ancient sculpture, coins and over 4,000 gems – the two were naturally often grouped together. The gems are now in the Antikensammlung Berlin
.

Vishnu Nicolo Seal
with Vishnu blessing a worshipper, Afghanistan or Pakistan, 4th-6th century AD. The inscription in cursive Bactrian reads: "Mikira, Vishnu and Shiva"

The collection of

Charles Towneley, Richard Payne Knight and Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode were bought by or bequeathed to the British Museum, founding their very important collection.[47]

But the most famous English collection was that formed by the

Lord Chesterfield, who himself warned his son in one of his Letters against "days lost in poring upon imperceptible intaglios and cameos".[49] The collection, including its single most famous cameo, the "Marlborough gem" depicting an initiation of Cupid and Psyche, was dispersed after a sale in 1899, fortunately timed for the new American museums and provided the core of the collection of the Metropolitan in New York and elsewhere,[20] with the largest group still together being about 100 in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.[49][50]

Prince

Poniatowski gems to the King of Prussia which now form the Daktyliothek Poniatowski in Berlin, where they were recognised as modern in 1832, mainly because the signatures of ancient artists from very different times were found on gems in too consistent a style.[51]

Artists

The Punishment of Tityus, a rock crystal intaglio by Giovanni Bernardi.

As in other fields, not many ancient artists' names are known from literary sources, although some gems are signed. According to Pliny,

signet rings of Augustus – very carefully controlled, they allowed orders to be issued in his name by his most trusted associates. Other works survive signed by him (rather more than are all likely to be genuine), and his son Hyllos was also a gem engraver.[52]

The

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his wife and son.[53]

The Scot

Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and in Edinburgh.[55] Other types of imitation became fashionable for ladies' brooches, such as ceramic cameos by Josiah Wedgwood in jasperware. The engraved gem fell permanently out of fashion from about the 1860s,[20] perhaps partly as a growing realization of the number of gems that were not what they seemed to be scared collectors. Among the last practitioners was James Robertson, who sensibly moved into the new art of photography. Perhaps the best known gem engraver of the 20th century, working in a contemporary idiom, is the British artist Ronald Pennell,[56] whose work is held in the British Crafts Council
Collection among many others.

Imitations

The Portland Vase in Roman cameo glass in imitation of onyx.

Cameo glass was invented by the Romans in about 30BC to imitate engraved hardstone cameos, with the advantage that consistent layering could be achieved even on round vessels – impossible with natural gemstones. It was however very difficult to manufacture and surviving pieces, mostly famously the Portland Vase, are actually much rarer than Roman gemstone cameos.[57] The technique was revived in the 18th and especially 19th centuries in England and elsewhere,[58] and was most effectively used in French Art Nouveau glass that made no attempt to follow classical styles.

The Middle Ages, which lived by

Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, mimicked the engraved gem.[59]

Another offshoot of the mania for engraved gems is the fine-grained slightly translucent stoneware called jasperware that was developed by Josiah Wedgwood and perfected in 1775.[60] Though white-on-blue matte jasperware is the most familiar Wedgwood ceramic line, still in production today and widely imitated since the mid-19th century, white-on-black was also produced. Wedgwood made notable jasperware copies of the Portland Vase and the Marlborough gem, a famous head of Antinous,[61] and interpreted in jasperware casts from antique gems by James Tassie. John Flaxman's neoclassical designs for jasperware were carried out in the extremely low relief typical of cameo production. Some other porcelain imitated three-layer cameos purely by paint, even in implausible objects like a flat Sèvres tea-tray of 1840.[62]

Scholars

Gems were a favourite topic for

antiquaries from the Renaissance onwards, culminating in the work of Philipp von Stosch, described above. Major progress in understanding Greek gems was made in the work of Adolf Furtwängler (1853–1907, father of the conductor, Wilhelm). Among recent scholars Sir John Boardman (b. 1927) has made a special contribution, again concentrating on Greek gems. Gertrud Seidmann
(1919–2013) moved into the subject, having previously been a German teacher.

Notes

  1. sard or carnelian
    , Etta M. Saunders, noted. Saunders, "Goddess Riding a Goat-Bull Monster: A Ceres Zodiac Gem from the Walters Art Gallery" The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 49/50 (1991/1992;7–11) note 19
  2. O. M. Dalton
    observed in "Mediæval and Later Engraved Gems in the British Museum — I" The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 23 No. 123 (June 1913:128-136) and "II" The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 24 No. 127 (October 1913:28–32).
  3. ^ Kornbluth, 8-16 quotes passages from Theophilius and others, and discusses various techniques. See Theophilius's article for full on-line texts.
  4. ^ Thoresen, "Gemstone enhancement"
  5. ^ "A brief history of engraved Classical gems". www.christies.com. Christie's. 28 May 2020. Archived from the original on 25 November 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  6. ^ Boardman, 39 See Beazley for more detail.
  7. ^ "Lenticular" or "lentoid" gems have the form of a lens.
  8. ^ Beazley, Later Archaic Greek gems: introduction.
  9. ^ Boardman, 68-69
  10. ^ Boardman, 129-130
  11. ^ Boardman, 187-188
  12. ^ Beazley, "Hellenistic gems: introduction"
  13. ^ Boardman, 275-6
  14. ^ Henderson, 112-113
  15. ^ De Natura fossilium Bk 1
  16. ^ Examples: 14th century French Crucifixion, Rosary pendant, 15th century, both onyx and in the MMA New York.
  17. ^ Kornbluth, 1, 4. Susanna Crystal, British Museum.
  18. ^ Kornbluth, 1, 4-6
  19. ^ Campbell, 411
  20. ^ a b c Draper, James David. "Cameo Appearances". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (August 2008)
  21. ISBN 978-0-8153-2935-0. p. 28/160 Google books. Image and description by Boardman Archived 2018-11-19 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ISBN 978-90-429-1855-9. Google books
  23. ^ "Nowadays, however, they have been somewhat neglected—probably because a genuine gem is difficult to distinguish from forged one, and collectors have grown timid in consequence" (Richter, "Engraved Gems" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 17.9 (September 1922:193-196) p. 193
  24. ^ a b c Beazley, Boardman lecture Archived 2018-11-19 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ^ Getty, Collectors
  26. ^ Beazley Archive, "Late Antique, Early Christian and Jewish gems: Sasanian gems – Christian and Jewish"
  27. Numismatic evidence is the other most indicative evidence of the general pose of locally important cult images
    .
  28. ^ Beazley, Geometric and Early Archaic gems: Island gems 6th down.
  29. ^ Beazley, Archaic period pages
  30. ^ Hennig, 154-5. British Museum on the Blacas Cameo of Augustus.
  31. ^ Hennig, 153, Boardman, 275-6
  32. ^ Pliny, see below. Whether he was right to claim Mithridates as the first collector is dubious.
  33. ^ De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius, (The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius), Fordham online text
  34. ^ Pliny, Natural History, xxxvii.5
  35. ^ "Treasury of San Marco". Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
  36. ^ Getty Collectors, under Pietro Barbó
  37. ^ It passed into the Arundel collection and came to Oxford: see Ashmolean image and description and Graham Pollard, "The Felix Gem at Oxford and its provenance" The Burlington Magazine 119 No. 893 (August 1977:574).
  38. ^ Online: The Introduction from Lorenzo de'Medici, Collector of Antiquities', by Laurie Fusco & Gino Corti, Cambridge UP 2006, which gives a survey of early Renaissance collecting in general. On his signing his gems see Draper
  39. ^ Gonzaga Cameo Archived 2012-02-23 at the Wayback Machine Exhibition in Mantua further details
  40. ^ "Mantua exhibition". Archived from the original on 2009-06-24. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  41. ^ Roy Strong, Henry Prince of Wales and England's Lost Renaissance (1986:199).
  42. ^ Diana Scarisbrick, "The Devonshire Parure", Archaeologia 108 (1986:241).
  43. ^ "Sulphurs" provided even finer detail; James Tassie made a career of casting gems in plaster and in coloured opaque glass.
  44. ^ Apart from those mentioned below, there is information on other notable collections from the Getty Museum
  45. ^ "Hermitage Museum". Archived from the original on 2014-04-19. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
  46. ^ His correspondence with Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle is published by Diana Scarisbrick, "Gem Connoisseurship – The 4th Earl of Carlisle's Correspondence with Francesco de Ficoroni and Antonion Maria Zanetti", The Burlington Magazine 129No. 1007 (February 1987:90-104).
  47. ^ Towneley's were bought from his heirs, the others bequeathed. See King, 218-225 for a selection of highlights
  48. ^ Beazley, Marlborough Collection Archived 2015-07-29 at the Wayback Machine
  49. ^ a b Beazley, The Marlborough Gems, Boardman Lecture Archived 2018-11-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  50. ^ Walters, "Gems belonging to the Fourth Duke of Marlborough in the Walters"
  51. ^ John Beazley, The Poniatowski Collection of gems. More details in The Bernie Madoff of Gem Collectors
  52. ^ Boardman, 275-6. Hennig 153-4
  53. ^ Metropolitan
  54. ISBN 110459093X
    / 1-104-59093-X)
  55. ^ Beazley, Tassie Archived 2019-03-25 at the Wayback Machine
  56. ^ Significant Figures in Art & Craft Today, Derek Reay, MoTi publishing, UK 2011
  57. ^ Trentinella, Rosemarie. "Roman Cameo Glass". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–9. link (October 2003, retr. 16 September, 2009); Whitehouse, David. Roman glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, Volume 1 Corning Museum of Glass. Google books
  58. ^ Texas A&M University Museum Archived 2009-04-08 at the Wayback Machine Exhibition feature George Woodall and the Art of English Cameo Glass
  59. ^ picture and link
  60. ^ Robin Reilly, Wedgwood Jasper London, 1972.
  61. ^ Antinoos.info See "Gems" section for gem and casts etc
  62. ^ Sèvres tea-tray from the Metropolitan museum of Art

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Intaglios.
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Further reading

External links

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