refers the pretty epigram of King Polemo (Anthol. ix. 746), 'On a herd of cattle engraved on a green Jasper: ' Seven oxen does this jasper signet bound, All seem alive within its narrow round; Hence lest they roam beyond the verdant plains, A golden fold the little herd restrains." That spotted with red, now called the Bloodstone, anciently bore the name of Heliotrope, or "Sun-turner," from the notion that if immersed in water it reflected an image of the sun as red as blood, "sanguineo repercussu;" and because, also, "when in the air it might be used as a mirror to observe the eclipses of the same luminary, and the moon passing before and obscuring it." In this kind antique intagli are very rarely to be met with. On the other hand, they are very frequent in a hard green Jasper mottled with brown, a favourite stone with the Gnostics. A dull yellow variety was also much used by them for their talismans, and also by the engravers of the earlier Mithraic representations. The black, a very fine and hard material, presents us with many excellent intagli of every epoch of the art,1o as does also the dark-green variety-above all for Egyptian work. The socalled red Jasper is a softer stone, and of a different species; it is now often called Hæmatite, but the ancient Hæmatites bore no resemblance at all to this substance, for it could be dissolved in water, and was used in medicine, and was, there can be little doubt, nothing more than our Bole Armoniac. Of this red Jasper there are two sorts-one of a vermilion "It was, however, a great favourite with the early Italian engravers, many of whose works on bloodstone have been sold as precious antiques. They were fond of using it for representations of the Flagellation, or Martyrdoms: inge 10 niously availing themselves of the red spots on its surface to imitate the issuing blood. 10 A fragment of one of the finest Greek intagli known, the Medusa's profile of the Mertens-Schaafhausen Collection, is on black Jasper. C colour, the other of a very rich crimson; the latter is by far the rarest. This stone has always been a favourite with the Romans, from the middle period down to the end of the Empire. We often find in it Imperial portraits of admirable work; while the rude intagli also, of latest date, appear on this material in an endless abundance. One of the finest intagli in existence, the head of Minerva, after Phidias, the, perhaps, chief treasure in that division of the Vienna Collection, is engraved on red Jasper. It bears the signature of Aspasius, whose works, as Visconti observes, appear exclusively upon this stone-a singular exception to the usual mediocrity of intagli in this material. Hence we may conjecture that red Jasper, in the age of this artist, was still rare in Europe; and that he was captivated by the beautiful opacity and rich colour of the substance, as well as by its close and easily-worked texture, which made it so favourite a ring-stone under the Lower Empire, when the importation of it had so largely increased. At the present day the source of this supply is unknown: the true antique Jasper, vermilion coloured, is only to be met with in antique examples, and hence the modern engravings will be always discovered to be executed on a brownish-red variety. This peculiarity, at the first sight of the stone itself, caused me to doubt the authenticity of the Bearded Bacchus, by Aspasius, in the British Museum, the modern origin of which I have since ascertained to be established beyond all dispute. Pliny distinguishes several varieties of the Jasper, and says that the best sort had a tinge of purple, the second of rosecolour, and the third of the Emerald. A fourth sort was called by the Greeks Borea, and resembled the sky of an autumnal morning-hence must have been of a pale blue. One kind, like an Emerald, and surrounded by a white line passing through its middle, was called the Grammatias, and was used in the East as an amulet. I have seen a square gem, exactly answering to this description, engraved on both sides with Gnostic legends. According to Pliny, Jaspers were much imitated by means of pastes; and a combination of several colours artificially cemented together with Venice turpentine produced a new variety called the Terebinthizusa. To baffle such a fraud the best stones were always set transparent, "the edges only of the gem being clasped by the gold." Jaspers were the stones called "Sphragides," sealstones par eminence, at this period, and held precedence above all others for the purpose of signets, as they made the best impressions of all intagli upon the soft wax then in use. A pale-green variety, of a very fine grain, and quite opaque, sometimes occurs, and often with good engravings upon it: this was the kind so much imitated by the ancient pastes. There is no doubt that many of the lighter-coloured Plasmas were reckoned among the green Jaspers of ancient times. The ancient "Agate" comprehended latterly as many varieties as are classed under that name and that of Jasper in the present day. The different kinds are prettily described by Orpheus (v. 605), who prescribes this stone as an antidote against the bites of serpents: "Drink too the changeful agate in thy wine; But best of all that sort whereon is spied The tawny colour of the lion's hide. This gem by th' ancient demigods was famed, And from its hue Leontoseres named. All covered o'er with thousand spots 't is seen— Some red, some white, some black, some grassy green. If any, groaning from the scorpion's dart, Medusa: Greek. Black Jasper. GARNET S. This gem has borrowed its name from the "Granatici," or red hyacinths of antiquity, so called from their resemblance to the scarlet blossom of the pomegranate. For stones of the same colour were promiscuously classed under the same title by the ignorance of the Middle Ages, whence has arisen the strange interchange of names between ancient and modern precious stones so often to be noticed in these pages. Garnets were largely employed by the Romans and the Persians; though they do not appear to have been much used for engraving upon before a late date, to judge from the fact that splendid stones often occur completely disfigured by the wretched abortions of intagli cut upon them, evidently the productions of the very decrepitude of the art. I have, however, seen a few admirable works of antique skill upon this gem, but they are of excessive rarity, and, in most instances, belong to the Roman school.1 Portraits of the Sassanian monarchs frequently appear on this gem; in fact, it The magnificent Atalanta of the Berlin gallery, on a large Carbuncle, and of the finest Greek work, is an exception to this remark. would seem to have been regarded by the later Persians as a royal stone, from the preference they have given it as the bearer of the sovereign's image and superscription. Pliny says that all the varieties of the garnet "Carbunculus " obstinately resist the engraver, and the wax adheres to them in sealing. This remark is quite correct as referring to the soft sealing material used by the ancients, a composition similar to our modelling wax, which is made of beeswax, to which is added a few drops of turpentine, and a little vermilion to give a colour. They also used for sealing a fine pipe-clay called "creta," which still continues the Italian term for plastic clay.2 The common Garnet is of the colour of red wine more or less diluted. The Carbuncle, which is always cut en cabochon, i.e. in a form approaching to the hemispherical, is of a deeper and a richer colour. The Vermilion Garnet shows a considerable admixture of yellow, and often much resembles the dark Jacinth. The Almandine or Siriam Garnet, so called from the district in Pegue whence it now comes, has a tinge of purple mixed with the red, and exactly corresponds with Pliny's description of the Carbunculi amethystizontes, which were considered the first of all the varieties of that gem; and this rank it has retained in modern times. It is in truth one of the most beautiful of all the coloured precious stones, and is found in crystals of considerable size. Garnets and Carbuncles are now supplied in large quantities. from the mines of Zöblitz in Silesia; yet even now a stone of a certain size, of good rich colour, and free from flaws, is of considerable value, ranging from 87. to 107. But its estimation has greatly fallen since the times of Mary Queen of * Creta is usually rendered Chalk, but this substance is unknown in Italy the true Latin term for chalk is probably Marga, and derived from the Gallic name at the time the Romans first saw it in Gaul. |
