The art, which had declined at the close of the sixteenth century in Italy, flourished in the sev enteenth century in Germany under Rudolph II., for whom Lehman engraved at Vienna; and in France, where Coldore worked for Henry IV. and Louis XIII. In the seventeenth century Sir leaf, who died at Rome in 1737, excelled in por traits, and copied antique statues with great ex cellence. The two Costanzi were celebrated about 1790, one for the head of Nero on a diamond. Rega of Naples is said to have come nearest to the antique. Natter of Nuremberg, who died in 1763, is celebrated for his intaglia; Guay and Hurler were celebrated in the French school; and the English produced Reisen, who died in 1725; Claus, who died in 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, Cerhara, Bernini, and Putentati are much praised. The nineteenth cen tury produced many good English engravers, as Marchant, Burch, Wray, and Tussle; while Pis trucci, celebrated for his charming cameo, Wei gall, and Saulini, who made intaglia, complete the list of modern gem-engravers.
With respect to ancient gems in the Middle Ages, they were preserved in magnificent book bindings—especially of manuscripts of the Bible —in reliquaries, ciboriums, shrines, chasses, and other ecclesiastical vessels, in which they were set. The collections of Saint Mark's, Venice, of Aix-la-Chapelle and other churches, the Biblio theque Nationale at Paris, the cabinets of the museums of Florence, Vienna, Saint Petersburg, etc., show how this was done by Byzantine, Caro lingian, Romanesque, and Gothic artists. The collecting of antique gems for their own sake, as examples of ancient art, commenced with Lorenzo de' Medici, who formed the Florentine collection, and had his name incised on his gems. The large camei of the European collections, how ever, appear to have been brought by the Crusad ers 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 Margrave of Anspach, collected by Stosch, consists of nearly 5000 stones. The Vien na 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 Crach erode, consists of about 500 stones, some of great beauty and merit, but is very poor in camei. The private collection of the Duke of Devonshire, formed in the last half-century, comprised up ward of 500 intaglios and cameos, including some of the finest known. The Pulzky collection, now in Italy, contains many rare and choice intaglia. A celebrated collection, the Poniatowsky. formed upon the basis of the old collection of Stanislas, 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 was re
markably rich in fine Etruscan scarabni, and other intaglios. The Tyszkiewiez collection, re cently dispersed, has enriched the Boston Museum with many fine pieces. The Morgan collection, in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, begun in 1899 and added to in 1901, is one of the largest modern collections of gems. There are probably about 10,000 gems reputed to be antique. Yet these are only a mere installment of those formerly existing. During the Renaissance very numerous and suc cessful imitations of antique gems were made, and the signatures of Greek and Roman artists were manufactured. Such forgeries are still so frequent as to cast suspicion on the entire subject. The immense value placed by the ancients on their gems may be seen by the scab bard of Mithridates, valued at 400 talents, or $37,860; the pearl given by Julius Cusar to Servilia, worth $24,000; that swallowed by Cleo patra, valued at $25,000; and the pearls arid emeralds worn by Lollia Paulin, wife of Ca ligula, valued at $1,600,000—all the spoils of provinces and the heirlooms of her family. These, indeed, were probably not engraved, bdt in mod ern times great sums have been paid to cele brated engravers—as much as $4000 for one cameo.
Although the acquisition of gems is too costly for most private individuals, impressions in glass. called pastes (see GiAss), in sulphur, gutta percha, or plaster of Paris, can be easily ob tained, and they answer almost all the purposes. of study. Some ancient impressions in terra cotta, indeed, exist, and the poorer classes of Greece and Rome were content with glass pastes. The principal writers of antiquity who treated of gems are Orromacritus or the Pseudo-Orpheus, Dionysius Perigetes, Theophrastus, and Pliny, whose chapter is compiled from antecedent Greek and Roman authors. Isidorus (A.D. 630) gives an account of the principal stones; so do Psellus and Marbodus in the eleventh century. The best general account is in Babelon, Les gravus en yierres fines (Paris, 1894) ; and King, Handbook of Engraved Gems (London, 1885), is still an authority. Middleton, Engraved Gems of Classi cal Times (Cambridge, 1891), is an excellent handbook, both technical and historical, for tho Graeco-Roman period. A pioneer for the Babylo nian, Assyrian, Syrian, Phoenician, and Hittite schools is Menant, Les pierres gravees de la Haute Asie (1883-86). Consult, also: Dana, Manual of Mineralogy and Lithology (3d ed., New York, 1878) ; Kunz, Gems and Precious Stones of North America, (New York, 1890). The best catalogues of the large museum collec tions are: Catalogue of Engraved Gems in the British Museum (London, 1888) ; Babelon, Le cabinet des antiques d la Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris. 1889) ; id., Catalogue des camees an tiques et modernes do la Biblioth-eque Nationale (Paris, 1897).