derivation from the Arabic just mentioned. Among the numerous attempts to trace the etymology of this word, it is surprising that no one should have deduced it from Chama, the shell sometimes used for this kind of work; a theory which would have been favoured by the origin of the term porcelain, which comes, by a similar process of transition, from the porcellana shell formerly used in the manufacture of the Italian Faenza ware. But if we consider the circumstance that as early as the time of Cellini the rustics around Rome called the Onyx stones that they used to pick up in their grounds by the name of camei, and that this word appears only to denote a colour, at least in its primary sense, as, for instance, paintings in cameo or camaieu-grey figures upon a white ground-we are probably justified in seeking an Italian origin for the term. The only light that I have been able to extract from Lessing's lengthy dissertation on the word, though he seems to consider it a corruption of "gemma onychina," is that "cameo" was considered by some writers to be the equivalent of the German "Speckstein," or bacon-stone, which homely substance, to the vulgar eye, the red layers of the Sardonyx greatly resemble. Hence, after all, as no better etymology has been suggested, the Gothic word "ham," in its baconian sense, may have acquired this more euphonious form in the Italian mouth, a transformation not so strange as that of our "hopper" into

zoppo.

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The term applies only to minute bas-reliefs cut on a hard

After all, the Italian word may only be the rustic pronunciation of gemmeus, for it is often found in old writers spelt gamahu. The modern Romans continually interchange the g and c: thus cancer becomes grancio; cammarus, gambro; chrysoprasus, grisopraso; chryseus, griseo

and grigio, &c. Bede, speaking of Jet, describes it as nigro-gemmeus; and Valerian uses the term annulus bigemmeus: hence we may conjecture that imago gemmea would in Low Latin gradually assume this form.

stone or gem, or on an imitation of the same; for the largest bas-reliefs upon a slab of Sardonyx would still be named a cameo, while the smallest on marble or alabaster still remains a bas-relief. The small heads, and even busts, in full relief, made out of gems, are not, properly speaking, camei, though often so called, but are rather portions of statuettes, the rest of the figure having been intended to be completed in the precious metals. The earliest mention of a ring-stone in relief occurs in Seneca, who, in a curious anecdote which he tells (De Beneficiis, iii. 26) concerning the informer Maro and a certain Paulus, speaks of the latter as having had on his finger on that occasion a portrait of Tiberius in relief upon a projecting gem, "Tiberii Cæsaris imaginem ectypam atque eminente gemma." This periphrasis would seem to prove that such a representation was not very common at the time, or else a technical term would have been used to express that particular kind of gem-engraving. Pliny also mentions a stone called Morio, probably from its mulberry colour, used for engravings in relief, "ad ectypas sculpturas faciendas;" perhaps the dark Jacinth or the Guarnaccino, in which so many camei still remain. From a careful inspection of the most famous cabinets of France and Italy I have come to the conclusion that truly antique camei were usually of larger dimensions than are suited for ring-stones, and were almost exclusively designed to ornament armour dresses or plate. For if we examine attentively those early collections. which were formed before the art of cameo-cutting had revived (which was not much before the middle of the 16th century), such as that of Florence, which contains many camei obtained by Lorenzo dei Medici himself and marked with his name, we shall find them to be all of large size and of a bold but rude style of work. The same remark also holds good for the oldest portion of the Paris Collection.

1

This rude but bold style is also invariably found in the camei enchased in medieval jewellery and ecclesiastical plate, in which so many precious relics of this art have been preserved-thanks to the uneducated piety of their Gothic makers-such as that perfect mine of antique gems the silver-gilt shrine of the Three Kings of Cologne, which is known to be a work of the 11th century. The great rarity of small antique camei is also proved by the fact that they are seldom or never found, even those of the coarsest quality, in the miscellaneous jumble of stones of all kinds collected by the Roman peasants in turning over their vineyards -a remark to which there are fewer exceptions than even in the case of antique pastes already commented upon. Again, not even does the largest cabinet possess an antique ring set with a fine cameo, though, were they as abundant in ancient times as the present number of professed antiques would lead us to suppose, antique rings would present us with as many instances of set camei as they do of set intagli. But so far is this from being the case that the Florentine Cabinet, amongst its innumerable gems of all ages, only possesses one antique gold ring set with a cameo of even fair execution, and that so singular in its nature as to merit a detailed description. It has been evidently the ornament of some Roman sporting gentleman, who, as the poet sings, held his wife "a little higher than his horse," for it is set with a cameo head of a lady, of tolerable work, in Garnet; and on the shoulders of the ring are intaglio busts of his two favourite steeds, also in Garnet, with their names cut in the gold on each side-AMOR and OSPIS. On the outside of the shank is the legend POMPHINICA, "Success to thee, Pomphius!" very neatly engraved on the gold. In all my own experience I have met with only two camei in antique rings, and, singularly enough, both represented birds-one a parrot,

very rudely cut upon an Onyx of many colours, the other a pigeon, tolerably executed, on the same kind of stone, perhaps of early Christian times: these were set in hollow gold rings, the genuine antiquity of which was beyond suspicion."

The rarity of camei of the size of ring-stones in ancient times will appear less extraordinary when we reflect that the primary use of rings was for the purpose of signets, not of mere personal ornaments, and that very few even of the precious stones are left to us which have not had their value. enhanced, to the eye of taste, by the engraving upon them. The artists of antiquity do not seem to have been able to execute small works of sufficient finish to have become favourite or fashionable decorations of the fingers. And this leads to the consideration of the mechanical means employed

7 In the Mertens-Schaafhausen Collection is a Jacinth cameo, an imperial bust, which was in a silver setting, apparently a circular brooch, at the time of its discovery on the breast of a skeleton in a tomb at Marsfeld near Mayence. owner had probably been a German chief, for three large double-spiral ornaments of bronze wire covered his chest, having once been sewn on his tunic for ornament and

The

defence at the same time; and his arms were incased from wrist to elbow in spiral bracelets of the same material. It may here be noticed that the barbarian so often transfixed by the emperor, on the latest Roman coins, is usually represented with his arms covered by a series of parallel rings, probably this identical form of bracelet, which served the purpose of a gauntlet.

by the ancient cameo-cutters in the execution of their works. On minutely examining a really antique cameo the design will appear to have been cut out of the coloured layer by the repeated strokes of a tool of the nature of a chisel, which left a series of uneven surfaces, to be polished down more or less by a subsequent operation. The outline of the figure always fades away into the field of the stone, which often shows minute traces of the upper layer not completely cleared away from it; and the design is never undercut, as it often is in modern camei for the purpose of throwing it out more from the field. The ground itself is often left uneven and not completely cleared of the upper layer, having evidently been scraped down by means of a narrow cutting instrument, which could not be made to bear upon a large surface at one and the same operation. Hence these works, though extremely effective at a distance the purpose for which they were intended by the engraver-appear rough, and, as it were, lumpy, on too close an inspection. This unevenness of the ground of the design has been pointed out by some writers as the unvarying test of antiquity in a cameo, but this is not exactly correct, as the same peculiarity is equally manifest in the works of the earliest artists of the Revival.

It may be observed that many antique camei are perforated through their diameter to admit a thread for the purpose of fastening them to the dress; and some are enclosed in a massy iron setting, evidently intended as ornaments for armour. This was the case with the finest cameo that ever came under my inspection, at Rome: a head of Jupiter Dodonæus, about six inches in circumference.'

But in most cases this perforation merely attests the Indian origin of the Sardonyx stones (Pliny), imported into Europe in the form of large beads, and subsequently flattened by the Greek or Roman gem

engraver to the form most suitable to bring out the layers of the stone required by his design.

The owner demanded 2000 scudi, about 4007., for this fine gem.