The Marlborough gems being a collection of works in cameo and intaglio formed by George, 3rd [or rather 4th] duke of Marlborough |
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14 inch agate amethyst ancient antique Apollo artist Arundel gem Cat Arundelian Bacchus base layer beautiful beryl Bessb Bessborough Collection Cat Bessborough gem Cat black base Blenheim bluish brown layer brown sard bust portrait cabochon Cęsar cameo Catalogue chalcedony character Chesterfield colour contemporary copy cornelian Cupid Duke of Marlborough early Imperial Elagabalus enamelled engraved face Faustina Faustina the elder Faustina the younger female head garnet gem-engraver Greek Hadrian hair hand helmet Hercules high relief hyacinthine inch high inscription intaglio lady last century late Roman Lord Lord Bessborough Marlborough Gems mask Medina gems Cat modern cameo modern intaglio nicolo numbers onyx onyx cameo pale perhaps plasma probably red sard renaissance renaissance period representing Roman intaglio Roman period rude sardonyx Satyr shallow signature small cameo stone stratum style surface layer Thec third Duke translucent upper layer white layer workmanship wreath yellow sard
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Page 96 - ... There is none such as he," inscribed on the ring. This most interesting and minute intaglio is in all probability the identical signet of Charles V. of France, described in the inventory of his valuables, made in 1379 : " Le signet du Roy qui est de la teste d'un roy sans barbe ; et est d'un fin rubis d'Orient : c'est celui de quoi le roy scelle les lettres qu'il escript de sa main.
Page 46 - Other gems with the subject, some of them certainly antique, but similarly treated, exist in different collections ; one is in the Payne Knight collection in the British Museum, and another in that at Berlin. The...
Page v - THE collection of cameos and intaglios of which this little volume is a Catalogue, has for nearly a century deservedly possessed a wide reputation. The two splendid volumes printed and distributed by the third Duke of Marlborough in 1780 and 1791, wherein a hundred of the most remarkable pieces in his collection were described and figured, would alone have sufficed to establish this fame for the
Page v - ... nearly a century deservedly possessed a wide reputation. To the archaeologist, the cabinet at Blenheim has always possessed a singular interest, from its including the collection of gems which...
Page 38 - A Bacchanal subject. A cameo, antique in character, wrought in a beautiful porcelain white upper stratum of a sardonyx, with a yellow base layer. The moulding of the limbs and form of the Maenad in the foreground, is extraordinarily delicate, and the attitudes of the remaining figures, viz. a Satyr teasing a panther, and a second Maenad, who is at hand to beat the tambourine, are artistically drawn. A reserved rim surrounds the design, which is set in an enamelled border of tulips and other flowers.
Page xxxiv - Dynasty in the Parthian Empire we find mingled with many luminous and lovely sards, and with transcendent garnets, nicolos presenting the finest contrasts in their colours ; all these stones carrying the singular and rudely worked subjects which seem to have represented an art inherited from the days of Mesopotamian cylinders and Persian conical stamps, but modified in its technique by the introduction of methods, especially the use of a coarse wheel, from the West. This stone may have been the jEgyptilla...
Page 38 - Two Satyrs playing the tibia ; a Cupid running to one of them. A rather large intaglio on a sard. One of the players sits on what appears to be a ram's skin. A work apparently of the renaissance period. An Arundel gem (Cat. Thee. E, No. 21). 226. — A Bacchanal subject. A cameo, antique in character, wrought in a beautiful porcelain white upper stratum of a sardonyx, with a yellow base layer. The moulding of the limbs and form of the Maenad in the foreground, is extraordinarily delicate, and the...
Page 46 - The head of the dog Sirius, radiated and open-mouthed, in front face. A very renowned intaglio, most profoundly cut, and marvellously finished in a material worthy of it, the kind of carbuncle known as the " Siriam" or " Syriam " garnet, as being obtained of the finest quality from the neighbourhood of the ancient capital of Pegu.
Page xxxii - In many cases, again, it was neither as a signet nor as an ornament so much as in the character of a talisman that a gem was worn : and for this it was only necessary that a certain subject should be engraved on a particular stone. The silent language of Art had little power to persuade or elevate where superstitions like these of the Orphic school of mystics, had dominated the reason and sealed the senses. And to this cause, as much as to any other, is due the decline of the gem-engraver's art,...
Page 75 - ... daughter of Titus by Nicander, whereof the upper part of the head and the head-dress are restored in gold. Mr. King considers it to be a Berenice, but the comparison with coins seems to justify the original attribution. The inscription is beyond all suspicion genuine, and might be of Ptolemaic date. It is retrograde. NIKANAP»< cn.ci The portrait is to the left, and the signature behind the neck. The original height of the gem must have been i^ inch, its width |ths nearly.