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HISTORICAL CAMEOS.
An interesting historic cameo is Coriolanus visited by his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia. His original name was Marcius, but on account of his valor in a contest against the Volscians he was surnamed Coriolanus. In the time of a famine he was impeachedfor his opinions in regard to the distribution of corn received from Sicily; he was condemned to exile. He now went over to the Volscians, and became general of their army, and successfully attacked the Romans; they, fearing him, made advances to him and offered the restoration of all his property and franchises; he resisted all their propositions. It was not until his mother and wife came to him that he could be induced to relent; their prayers and tears, however, moved him; he then retired with his army, but passed the remainder of his life with the Volscians, who had honored him for his valor and not from fear. The guard with a shield at the right is a Volscian, and he at the left is a Roman.
Observe in my collection an allocution of Marcus Aurelius before the Prætorian Guard: the guard arenot only known by their costume, but by the banner which is marked S. C. (Senatus Consultum).
No incidents in ancient history are more interesting or more dramatic than the episodes in the life and career of fair Cleopatra; one of the most vivid to my fancy’s recollection is the scene of her fatal giving up of that romantic life as depicted on a beautiful turquoise cameo—No. 346.
It is well understood that many of the cameos concerning Christ are truly historical. There is also Horatius defending the bridge. The bridge was on the Tiber at Rome; Horatius was fighting the Etruscans; the Romans were obliged to destroy their end of the bridge, when Horatius with his horse swam back.
True, we have history through classic Latin sources of the most important events of the first and second centuries. Yet these portraitures on stone, executed in the very epochs, add certainly great interest to the records of these times. The subjects on stone alluded to, mirror to us more faithfully, more vividly, scenes in the lives of several Roman emperors than any manuscript possibly could have done.
We have Trajan as emperor, judge, and warrior. We see him engaged in conflict, we admire him victorious, we rejoice in his happy return to Rome on several occasions; in his triumphant reception both by the people and the army, and in the arches erected as souvenirs of his prowess; in his dignified reception of the son of the King of the Armenians, and in his condescension in restoring their kingdom; in several of his expeditionsagainst the Dacians, and in his happy escape from the plot of Decebalus. We have instances of his public charities delicately depicted in cameo; his religious sacrifices; his exploits as a hunter of many wild animals, the boar and the lion included, are exemplified. We have several beautiful groups with emperors delivering allocutions before the cohorts of their armies, senators, and other dignitaries; the triumphant entry of Titus Vespasianus into Jerusalem, whereon twenty-two figures are visible, and the exit from Jerusalem of his victorious army, on which nineteen figures are seen; also the groups of Jewish prisoners.
All these pages in my stone book are certainly interesting additions to ancient history.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
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HISTORICAL CAMEOS.
We have seen how large a proportion of the subjects on ancient gems were mythological, how extended was the class of religious and of Christian subjects; we have noted the loved portraits of sovereigns, statesmen, philosophers, physicians, and poets.
There remains a series worthy of notice—those intaglios and cameos worn as amulets on which were engraved innumerable animals, birds, fishes, and even insects.
As the families of the nobility chose the insignia which entered into the quarterings of their escutcheons, so the ancients according to their superstitions or their tastes chose some patron animal or bird for an emblem and caused it to be engraved on their talismans; and these symbols were cherished with what might almost be termed religious fervency.
They were used as amulets, supposed to protect the wearers against accident and to repel danger. There was almost a pharmacopœia of gems, with solace for every trouble of mind and a remedy for every disease.
A dolphin, the mariner’s friend, on sard or carnelian, was an emblem worn by fishermen, and was believed to protect them from the attacks of sharks or other voracious fishes. They also carried with equal reliance the same design in antique paste.
The eagle of Jupiter is symbolic of his power, although it was subservient to him. This no doubt accounts for its appropriation in heraldry by sovereigns.
The raven, the friend of Apollo; the parrot, a loquacious inebriate, is often an attendant on Bacchus.
The aringa, a fish of the Adriatic Sea, represented on a talisman in my collection, was worn by women on account of its being the symbol of fruitfulness; it deposits many thousand eggs each year.
Certain insects, arachnids, and reptiles were employed as symbols, because they were supposed to protect man in each case from the enemy thereon delineated.
A scorpion on a transparent stone was an amulet against the sting of the arachnid.
As the scorpion inflicts a painful sting, the spider a venomous bite, and a variety of flies make dangerous aggression on the human form, their images engraved on stones were believed to shield the wearer from the ills due to attacks from corresponding insects.
One of the most minute insects employed as a talisman is the ant, symbolic of industry.
The peacock frequently appears on gems; naturally,no one would have had it as an emblem of vanity, in which sense it is generally accepted in modern times, but it was revered as the favorite of Juno.
The owl: Minerva’s head is at times draped with an owl; its connection with Minerva is that it is symbolic of profound meditation.
Beautiful storks occur frequently on engraved gems: they were so abundant in Asia Minor and in the Byzantine Empire that husbandmen sought to frighten them away; yet in other lands they were almost adored. In modern Fünen, and generally in Scandinavia, storks building their nests on the roofs of houses in the country are welcomed as bringing children for the household, and are cared for with a credulity equalling pagan superstition.
The frog has sometimes found a place in Christian symbolism as the most expressive image of the resurrection of the body, because frogs, like the serpents after their winter interment, emerge from their hiding-places and renew their youth by casting their slough.
Many farm and house companions figure in the series: a dog, fidelity; a cock, vigilance; a turtle, always at home; a snail, there is no hurry; a sheep, humility; a lamb, innocence; a horse, patience and endurance; a dove, harmless, the Holy Spirit; a lion, majesty and force; a serpent, wisdom, and, with its tail in mouth, eternity; a serpent was often represented on the stone above the fireplace in Roman kitchens; a ram wassignificant of the Nundine sacrifices made weekly to Jupiter; a lion and a goat driven by Cupid, the power of love: he guides not only the lascivious, but the strong.
The Antique Pastes are interesting from the fact that they present us with many curious mythological subjects not always to be found on semi-precious stones. They are specimens of a branch of early Roman industry.
They were made in imitation of Oriental stones, of which the supply was inadequate for the great demand of the first and second centuriesA. D., and also as a matter of economy. Often in ancient times a quantity of fragments of hard semi-precious pebbles too small to be engraved were pulverized, and the sand or granulated mass was fused in crucibles just as glass is made. This process enabled many lovers of the art to possess examples in this cheaper artificial substance when the same subjects on real India stones were commanding exorbitant prices. Some of these gems are beautifully opalescent and iridescent.
This iridescence, though so beautiful on the specimens of that kind, is only owing to chemical action on the paste gems during the centuries they have been buried in the earth. Interesting intaglios and cameos in enamel have withstood the wear of ages, and are in better condition; the imitations of red jasper are wonderful.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
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ANTIQUE PASTES.
Many intaglios in antique paste are representations in designs of ancient bronzes, of which we have no other trace except their mention by early historians.
The most precious antique example in paste is the Portland Vase. It was discovered in the sixteenth century in a sarcophagus within the monument of the Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother, Julia Mamæa, on the Frascati road, about two miles and a half from Rome. It was long known as the Barberini Vase, having belonged to that family in Rome for two hundred years; thence it came to England in the last century, and after twice changing ownership, at the death of the Duchess of Portland, from whom it takes its name, it was sold to the Duke of Marlborough, and is now in the British Museum. It has been broken and mended. It is about ten inches high, and at the broadest part six inches in diameter. It was formed of paste, and afterward engraved.
The paste is in imitation of onyx, in two strata, white upon blue, of an amethyst tinge; the figures are cut in relief on the lighter color, the blue forming the second plane or background.
Though the antique paste cameos and intaglios are largely reproductions of subjects also found engraved on pietradura, we are indebted to this class of gems for many examples of ancient cameos and intaglios which we would otherwise never have seen; in fact, from the rare beauty of some specimens in paste, they never could have existed in any other material.
Not only do both intaglios and cameos in antique paste present us with the choicest examples of miniature art, but the iridescence created on them by time frequently renders them the most beautiful specimens in a collection.
Through the possession of these Pagan cameos and intaglios we have become heirs to the most thorough knowledge of Mythology.
Hundreds of distinct specimens may be gathered from glyptic work centuries before Christ, and so arranged as to form several genealogical trees.
In Mythology there is not one single ancestor of all, as in the biblical history, where Adam is honored with being our original and only progenitor and equally censured with being the testator of our legacy of all human ills. The myriad bigamist ancestors of the countless mythological beings pictured on ancient gems have created and bequeathed to us numerous families of celestial and terrestrial divinities, denizens of earth, air, and water, and hundreds of grotesque chimeras.
Like the royal families of our sphere, there was much intermarriage of close relatives, many of their offspring bearing at times the forms of animals, birds, and anon reptiles. Some of their descendants were even metamorphosed in those tropical climes into trees, under the cooling umbrage of which other scions were born and commenced their adventurous career.
These poetical conceptions were the mythologicalforerunners of the simpler, purer, diviner religion which was eventually given to man. A close observer may find in these legendary myths antetypes of the omnipotent Godhead now revealed to us and in which is our sure hope and trust.
The Chinese are the only race producing glyptic work in relief on hard Jade, and also on stones resembling it—in which one is easily deceived.
They are said to be good copyists: all designs given to them for reproduction are copied very closely, but in what we find on engraved stones there is the type of their nationality; it resembles nothing else. Their work is mostly in very low relief, on Nacre, Jade, Amethyst, and Agalmatolite.
Their pictured stones generally represent hideous animals, birds, fruits, and views of paradise with figures of grotesque divinities. Their inscriptions are not deeply incised, but are usually letters or characters in their language in relief.
The exquisitely beautiful details often exhibited by the Chinese are surprising, especially when we consider the hardness of the Jade, the material principally employed by them.
What patience it must have required to cut those ornaments in Jade which we find on their scepters and on the handles of their official swords! Many pieces which are shown in museums have cost years of laboriousengraving. Jade has therefore been esteemed by the Chinese as emblematic of all virtue.
In this connection it may be remarked that the Burmese and the Siamese have seldom engraved on any stones harder than Alabaster or Agalmatolite (Chinese figure stone). Their subjects principally represent Buddha; occasionally his two feet; their emblematic flowers, and their deeply-revered sacred Bôdhi-tree at Gaya.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
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AZTEC.
The American Continent has contributed some unique work executed by the Aztecs anterior to the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
Among the existing glyptic relics of nations we find no examples of execution in stone-engraving more peculiar than what has been preserved of the work of the Aztecs or Mexicans, especially that done before the occupation by Pizarro.
The character of their work is so crude and distinct that no close observer can for a moment be mistaken in detecting its origin.
I have met with Aztec engraved stones among a miscellaneous collection offered to me for selection; there was that quality which enables a connoisseur to recognize the class of ornamentation doubtless worn by that people whom Prescott represented as decorated principally by gold, silver, and feathers.
Large pieces, cameos of two and a half to three inches, have been found which were worn by the Incas as breast ornaments, and are always pierced, which shows that they were suspended from the neck.
In fact, some of the most faithful representations of costume, head-dress, and weapons are inbasso-rilievoengraved stones in opaque white Alabaster and pale-green hard Nephrite.
We have much to enjoy as we survey the gems of the various epochs. The multifarious types that have been gathered in forty centuries meet our view, grouped in the tableau of engraved gems.
Our attention is drawn with interest to each sentiment expressed, feature defined, or emotion portrayed. We study the diversified qualities—the fineness or freedom of touch, ingenious effects, delicate lines, choice attitudes, graceful forms, force, spirit, and tenderness—which characterize these monuments of patience.
The engraved gems rescued from the torrent, ebbing and flowing with the fluctuating fortunes of ages, garnered by successive generations, enrich the traditional viaduct traversing the morass of many centuries. Some blocks are less beautiful than others in the structure, but from them we have founded our first footholds, and from them we mount to the work that embellishes the great Etruscan arches even when we revel on the finely pencilled coping-stones of the Greek and Roman epochs, or admire the ornate abutments of the Renaissance, we should revert with pleasure to the earlier, ruder contributions in the foundations, and we can find pleasure in viewing and studying every part.
The builder’s stones are graven—the footway is of pictured pebbles, miniatures, amulets, and seals, reflecting lineaments and traces of the history of entombed generations. Their inscriptions reveal to us the impress of ancient, mediæval, and modern art.