The art, which had declined at the close of the 16th c. in Italy, flourished in the 17th c. in Germany under Rudolph II., for whom Lehmann engraved at Vienna; and in France, where Coldore worked for Henri IV. and Louis XIII.• In the 17th c., Sirletti, who died at Rome in 1737, excelled in portraits, and copied antique statues with great excellence. The two Costanzi are celebrated in 1790, one for the head of Nero on a diamond. Rega of Naples is said to have come nearest to the antique. Natter of Nuremburg, who died in 1763, is celebrated for his intagli; Guay and Barier were cele brated in the French school; and the English produced Reisen, who died 1725; Claus, who died 1739; Smart, celebrated for the rapidity of his works; and his pupil Seaton, a Scotchman, who engraved portraits of the great men of his day. The greatest artist of the age, however, was Natter. Of the subsequent Italian school, Ghinghi, Girometti, Cerbara, Bernini, and Putenati arc much praised. The 19th c. produced many good English engravers, as Merchant, Burch, Wray, and Tassie; while Pistrucci, celebrated for his charming cameo, Weigall, and Saulini, who made intagli, complete the list of modern gem-engravers.
With respect to ancient gems in the dark and middle ages, they were preserved in shrines, chrisses, and other ecclesiastical vessels in which they were set, the passion for collecting them as works of art having commenced with Lorenzo de Medici, whit formed the Florentine collection, and had his name incised on his gems. The large camel of the European collections, however, appear to have been brought by the Crusa ders from the East. The French collection dates from Charles IX., and was augmented by the successive kings of France;. it is very rich in gems of all kinds; that of Berlin, containing the united cabinets of the Elector of Brandenburg and the Markgraf of Ans peel', collected by Stosch, consists of nearly 5000 stones. The Vienna collection, far less numerous, is remarkable for its large camel. In England, the collection of the British Museum, collected originally by Townley, Hamilton, Payne, Knight, and Cracherode, consists of about 500 stones, some of great beauty and merit, but is very poor in camel. The private collection of the Duke of Devonshire, formed in the last half century, comprises upwards of 500 intagli and camei, including some of the finest known. The Marlborough, still more numerous, comprises many fine camei and intagli, and numerous works of the renaissance. The Pulzky collection, now in Italy, contains
many rare and choice intagli. A celebrated collection, the Poniatowsky, formed upon the base of the old collection of Stanislaus, last king of Poland; was so filled with forgeries by its last possessor, executed by Roman artists, with inscriptions by Diez, that it entirely lost its value on dispersion. The Hertz collection, the last great one sold, was remarkably rich in fine Etruscan scarabmi and other intagli. There are about 10,000 gems reputed to be antique. Yet these are only a mere instalment of . those formerly existing. The immense value placed by the ancients on their gems, may Imo seen by the scabbard of Mithridates, valued at 400 talents, or £7572; the pearl given by Julius Caesar to Servilia, worth £4800; that swallowed by Cleopatra, valued at £5000; and the pearls and emeralds worn by Lollia Paullna, wife of Caligula, valued at £320,000 —all the spoils of provinces and the heirlooms of her family. These, indeed, were probably not engraved, but in modern times great sums have been paid to celebrated engravers—as much as £800 for one cameo.
Although the acquisition of gems is too costly for private individuals, impressions in glass, called pastes (see in sulphur, gotta percha, or plaster of Paris, can be easily obtained, and they answer almost all the purposes of study. Kome ancient im pressions in terra cotta, indeed, exist, and the poorer classes of Greece and Rome were content with glass pastes. The value of antique gems, owing to the great difficulty of discerning those really so, has considerably declined in this country, and even their authority is very cautiously cited by archaeologists. The principal writers of antiquity who treated of gems are, Onomacritus or the Pseudo-Orpheus, Dionysius Periegetes, Theophrastus, and Pliny, whose chapter is complied from antecedent Greek and Roman authors. Isidorns, 630 A.D., gives an account of the principal stones; so do Psellus and Marbodus in the 11th c.; Marietta, Pierres Granites (4to, Paris, 1850); Raspe, Catalogue des Empruntes des Pierres Grarees (4to, Lend. 1757); Millin, Introduction a l'Etude des Pierres Gravees 12mo, Paris, 179P; Krause; .Pyrgoteles Halle, 1856); Koehler, tidier U. K. die Geschnittene Steine (8vo, St. Petersb. 1851); King, Antique Gems (8vo, Lond. 1860), Bucher, Gesch. der technischen Et:taste (1875).