Another rule given for the distinguishing of antique camei, "that they were invariably worked out of the stone by means of the diamond point," is certainly true in itself; but yet all gems cut in this manner are not necessarily antique, as precisely the same mode of operation was followed by the early artists of the Italian school. Witness the large portrait of Queen Elizabeth cut upon a green and white Onyx, and now in the Kensington Museum; and a much earlier, and more admirable example, the oval cameo with the busts of Henry VIII. and his three children, now set in the Devonshire parure, a work of microscopic perfection and delicacy of touch. These later stones have usually a rim of the coloured layer, out of which the design is cut, left all round the edge of the cameo as a kind of border to the composition: an ornament not to be found in true antique works, except in those of the period of the Roman empire. The later Cinque-Cento camei are easily recognised by their extremely high relief, which gives the figures a very bossy appearance; they are also very much undercut, sometimes almost detached in portions from the field, which is now reduced to an extremely neat and even surface, whilst a remarkable polish and rotundity is given to all the projecting parts of the figures; so that they often look as if modelled out of wax, and then affixed to the surface of the stone. This glassy semi-transparent body of the raised parts is a sure test of the recent origin of the work on which it appears, for the same portions of the strata in an antique Onyx are usually converted into a dead and often chalky whiteness, by the action of the earth and of time upon them, during the ages through which they have been subjected to these powerful agents. Besides they never present that exact resemblance to designs in thick and opaque coloured enamels, so striking a peculiarity of the best antique performances.

But the most reliable test of antiquity in this class of work, is the similarity of the execution of the design, of the portraits for instance, with those on the coins of the same date; as it is very likely that a good cameo portrait on a larger scale served as the model to the ancient die-sinker, who was also by profession an engraver on gems.

Although the smooth and unworn surface of a cameo tells almost decidedly against its genuineness, as its exposed surface renders the work so much more liable to the injuries of wear and of time: yet one with a rough surface is by no means on that score alone to be pronounced unquestionably antique, on account of the common trick of dealers, before noticed, of cramming turkeys with newly-made gems, and thus in a few days anticipating the effect of centuries upon their polish. The style of work is by itself alone a very insufficient guide in determining the antiquity of a gem; for although the quaint exaggerated drawing of the artists of the Revival is easy to be recognised after a little practice, yet later engravers, like Pistrucci and Girometti, from the constant study of antique models, have produced works which would do honour to the greatest names of antiquity; and the head of Proserpine, by the latter, far surpassed any ancient work of the kind that I ever beheld-whilst the Flora of the former passed unquestioned for years as the chief ornament of Payne Knight's Collection. In such cases, therefore, the sole guide is the appearance which the Onyx always assumes from age, and which can only be learnt from long obser

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10 It is said that the antique Satyr's head was the type kept in view by M. Angelo in all his works. This is certainly true of the cameo-cutters of his age, for more than half their designs will be found to include or consist entirely of this grotesque subject: hence all camei on which

are represented Satyrs, or Fauns, or Bacchanalia, may be on that account alone shrewdly suspected of belonging to this school, and require very careful examination before their claims to an antique origin are allowed.

vation. Of this, the most obvious peculiarity is the opacity and extreme deadness acquired by the originally semitransparent strata of the stone. They actually are not to be distinguished from layers of enamel fused upon the ground of the work, and this effect is heightened by the excessive softness of manner and flat relief characterising many of the best antique camei; qualities which, as we have seen, the earliest artists of the Revival succeeded to some degree in imitating. Indeed many of the smaller antique camei, from their wonderful smoothness, flatness of relief, and depth of colour, can only be compared to certain of the best Limoges enamels on copper.

Ever since the revival of the art, gem engravers-especially those of the first two centuries since that epoch (the fifteenth towards its close)-have executed infinitely more camei than intagli, for the work of the former is easier by far than that of sinking the intaglio into the stone, as well as much more rapid, now that the operation is entirely effected by the wheel; so that no very great skill or practice is required to enable the engraver to produce a creditable performance; and the ornamental appearance of such works caused them to be much sought after in those ages of show and external magnificence. The fashion, too, was very general of wearing camei set as pendants to chains; and in the hats, in place of the gold or metal medallions of the preceding century: and hence we have such a number of the portrait camei of the Cinque-Cento still preserved to us in the elegant enamelled settings of the time, the forms of which still shew the purpose they were designed to

I was informed by a working cameo-cutter at Rome that the dealers in articles of virtù in that city only paid six pauls, or three shillings, apiece to the artists who

executed for them the very neatly finished cameo portraits on Onyx of poets and philosophers, so extensively purchased by dilettanti to be set in studs, rings, &c.

serve. From the infinite abundance of such works produced by artists of every degree of merit, during a space of nearly three centuries, it will easily be discerned how small is the chance of meeting with a really antique cameo among the numbers in existence. And this opinion is verified by experience, for in the numerous collections sold in London during the last ten years, and which I have examined, scarcely one stone in twenty presents all the required proofs of indubitable antiquity; however much collectors, and still more dealers, may be disposed to dispute the truth of this most uncomfortable doctrine. Many antique camei are cut on Sardonyx slabs of extraordinary dimensions, instances of which are exhibited in all celebrated collections; amongst these the pre-eminence in point of magnitude must be given to the famous Onyx of the Sainte-Chapelle, brought by King Baldwin from Constantinople, when that city belonged to the Franks in the 13th century. Some also exhibit an extraordinary variety of coloured strata; for instance, a large cameo representing a quadriga in the Paris Cabinet, where each of the four horses is cut out in a layer of the Onyx of a different colour; and portraits are often to be seen in which the hair, the flesh, and the laurel-wreath around the head are all represented in distinct shades. The works of the artists of the Renaissance are usually cut upon an inferior sort of stone, consisting of merely an opaque white layer upon a semi-transparent brownish ground, probably another reason for their working so frequently on the reverses of antique Sardonyxes, of a quality then unattainable at any cost; they

2 The artists of this age were fond of exhibiting their own skill in competition with that of the ancients, hence we so frequently meet with a Cinque-Cento cameo cut on the reverse of an antique one: to which

spirit of emulation we owe many a convenient means of comparing the styles of the two periods-where also the superiority must often be adjudged to the more recent hand.

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were also frequently engraved upon stones of but one colour, as Carnelians, Lapis-lazuli, and Garnets, where most of the effect of the design is lost from the absence of contrast between the ground and the design. Portraits of this date sometimes occur on Rubies and other hard gems, which have little to recommend them besides the difficulty of execution, a point utterly disregarded by a correct taste. In the same century also, the scarcity of materials affording layers of distinct colours led to the extensive employment of shells in which the natural strata exactly imitate the colours of the best pieces of the Sardonyx, an art which the modern Romans have carried to an astonishing degree of perfection. At present the Indian conchs are used for this purpose, affording a choice of the most beautiful strata: but the artists of the Renaissance were forced to content themselves with the shells of the Mediterranean, and works of extraordinary labour and taste for instance, a battle scene, with an infinity of figureswill be often seen thrown away upon these coarse and perishable materials. In the Kensington Museum are some admirable busts of the Caesars, on shell, by an artist of the early Renaissance school. This use of shells for the making of camei is said to have been practised by the ancients, and specimens of such works have occasionally been brought before me, as for instance, a head of a nymph in the Herz Collection, said to have been found in a vase at Vulci, and which certainly bore every appearance of true antique work. Other examples too I have seen, but with very great doubts of their authenticity, as it seems impossible that so fragile a substance could remain unchanged for so many ages, when

3 For the same reason we often find camei of this date cut upon the reverses of really antique gems, both camei and intagli. Some of the scarabei, presenting masks on their

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backs, may owe this rare decoration to some artist of this period.

4 For example, a very spirited portrait of Galba, to all appearance an antique work.