ON THE STUDY OF ANTIQUE GEMS.

ALL persons who have had any practical acquaintance with the subject of Antique Gems are agreed as to the important assistance which this class of relics of ancient art affords to the artist, the antiquary, and the historian, in their respective departments. In the first point of view, these small yet indestructible monuments preserve to us exact representations of the most celebrated works of the ancient sculptor, long since either destroyed, or else lost to the world. There is no doubt that every ancient statue, either of especial sanctity, or of great celebrity on account of its artistic merit, was faithfully reproduced in the miniature work of the gemengraver, with that honesty of treatment so justly pointed out by Goethe in the passage hereafter to be quoted. Thus, in the poetical description, by Christodorus, of the seventytwo antique masterpieces in bronze that adorned the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus in the 6th century, the choicest selections from the plunder of the Hellenic world, we recognise at the first glance the originals of many of the representations only preserved to our times by the means of their copies on gems of a slightly later period than that of their own production. The Apoxyomenos of Callicrates, which was pronounced the "Canon" or model of statuary in bronze, but which, together

with almost all the other works in that metal, has perished in the times of barbarism, is allowed by all archaeologists to have been the original of the famous intaglio in the Marlborough cabinet, an athlete using the strigil, itself also classed amongst the finest engravings known. The Apollo Delphicus too, supporting his lyre upon the head of a Muse by his side, a subject often reproduced without any variation, and usually in work of the greatest excellence, is incontestably the copy of some very famous and highly revered statue of this deity, then in existence. Again, amongst the MertensSchaafhausen gems my attention was attracted by a singular design, the same god armed with his bow and arrows in his one hand, and with the other holding the fore-feet of a stag standing erect the whole composition betokening an archaic epoch. There can be small doubt but that this little Sard has handed down to us a faithful idea of the bronze group by the early statuary Canachus, which from its singularity was accounted the chief ornament of the Didymeon at Athens: an Apollo thus holding a stag, the hind feet of which were so ingeniously contrived by means of springs and hinges in the toes, that a thread could be passed between them and the base on which they rested, a mechanical tour de force thought worthy by Pliny of particular mention.

Apollo of Canachus: Roman. Sard

In the same manner we obtain representations of noteworthy edifices long since reduced by time into heaps of

undistinguishable ruins. Again, if we consider the merits of the engravings as works of art, we have in them perfectly preserved examples of the taste and skill of those ages when the love of the beautiful flourished in its fullest extent, unfettered by prejudice, tradition, or conventional rules; whilst, from the unlimited demand during those ages for engraved gems, both for the use of signets and for personal decorations, artists of the highest ability did not disdain to exert their skill upon the narrow field of the precious stone. The unparalleled perfection and vigour of many of these performances are a sufficient proof that they proceeded directly from the master-hand, and were not mere slavish copies by a mechanic after the design supplied to him by the genius of another. Besides this moral proof, we have the direct testimony of Pliny (xxxv. 45) that such a distinguished modeller and statuary as Pasiteles also employed himself in the chasing of metals and in engraving upon gems. This artist, one of the latest lights of the Hellenic art, was a native of Magna Græcia and a contemporary of Varro, who highly praises his skill. On the revival of learning, antique gems were amongst the first relics of better times to claim the attention of men of taste to their intrinsic beauty, and to the perfection of the work displayed upon them, and no longer as objects merely to be prized, as in the preceding centuries, for their fancied magical or medicinal virtues. Hence, amongst the other measures taken by Lorenzo dei Medici towards fostering the dawning arts of design, we are informed by Vasari that he established a school in his gardens exclusively appropriated for the instruction of students in gem engraving, and for the execution of similar works in emulation of those ancient treasures which he so zealously accumulated. The large number of magnificent Camei marked with his name, LAVR. MED., still preserved in the

Florentine Cabinet, notwithstanding the yet larger propor. tion scattered over the other collections of Europe in consequence of the subsequent revolutions of that commonwealth, attest to our times the eagerness with which he sought after these relics of ancient skill, and the high importance which he attached to their acquisition. They were in truth, at that period, before many antique statues or bas-reliefs had been brought to light, the sole means of obtaining perfect and satisfactory examples of the artistic excellence of the Greek and Roman ages. And in no other department was this prince more successful in raising up a school of skilful artists than in this particular one, for the early Italian Camei approach so closely to the Roman, both in spirit and in treatment, that to distinguish between them often baffles the most extensive experience and leaves the real date of the work a matter of dispute and of uncertainty. But fifteen centuries before the days of Lorenzo, his illustrious prototype Mæcenas had regarded this same branch of art with especial favour, and has left striking evidences of his predilection for its productions in the scanty fragments of his writings; and, as a general observation, it will be found that, the more extensive the knowledge of the man of taste in the other lines of creative art, the more readily will he appreciate the distinctive excellences of this one in particular; as is clearly shown by the remarks of Goethe when this to him entirely new field first opened on his view. For none but smatterers in art ever estimate the value of a work by the rule of its dimensions; the man of true taste only looks at the mind displayed in the production, not at the extent of surface over which its result may be diffused. The feeling which induces the pretender to taste to slight the genius embodied within the small compass of the gem, merely on account of its minuteness, is the same in its nature as that

which has prompted all races, as well at the dawn as at the decline of the fine arts, to erect monuments which aim at producing effect by their magnitude alone. Pausanias observes satirically that, "only Romans and Rhodians pride themselves upon the possession of colossi," whilst the masterpieces of Greek skill rarely exceeded the size of life. And thus, Cellini, piqued by a remark of M. Angelo (made on seeing a small medallion of Atlas, chased by the former) "that an artist might very well be able to excel in such small designs and yet be incompetent to produce any work of merit on a grander scale," in order to demonstrate the falsity of this unjust assertion, immediately set about the model of his famous Perseus, which most judges will probably agree in considering as superior to any statue left us by his overweening critic.

It has been very justly observed by the author of Thoughts on Antique Cameos and Intaglios' that, although the work on gems, whether in relief or sunk, be confined to a very narrow space, and though, by reason of its necessary minuteness, it make not the direct, immediate, and powerful impression upon the imagination and affections which is felt when we behold figures of life or above life-size, in high or low relief, or when given to the eye on pedestals as statues, still it remains an unquestionable fact, that in all that relates to anatomical truth, expressiveness of attitude and aspect, gracefulness of drapery, and every other detail and accompaniment of fine workmanship, the Greek, Sicilian, and Roman artists were eminently distinguished, and especially in that simplicity of contour and composition and masterly ordonnance that have ever made the study of antique gems so serviceable for the settlement of the principles and the improvement of the practice of painting and sculpture. Hence the lovers of the fine arts, and especially artists