CAMEO, or CAMAIEU, is a gem worked in rillepo. The art of engraving on stone is of high antiquity ; but it was for the most part confined to intaglio, or indenting. It has been supposed that the Etruscans had the art of engraving hard stones before it was known to the Greeks ; many engraved stones, however, that are called Etruscan are doubt less early Greek, as may he inferred from their subjects.
The age of Augustus is remarkable for the excellence of the gem-engravers who were then living. One of the finest camel pre served in the collections of Europe is the Apotheosis pf Augustus, in the collection at Vienna. In the French collection, the sar donyx of Tiberius is one of the best known. We pOssess in this country some camei of first-rate excellence, but they are chiefly in private collections.
The workers in cameo not only exercised their skill in the cutting or engraving, but also in so arranging their subject and the composition of its details as to make the dif ferent colours or zones of stones answer for parts of the design. The ancients were so partial to this variously coloured work, that they even imitated the material in glass; and we possess in this country one of the most beautiful specimens of their ability in the Barberini, or Portland Vase, now in the British Museum.
At the decline of the Roman Empire, gem engraving fell with the other arts ; and it yip not till a late period that the taste and muni ficence of the Florentine family of Medici caused its revival in Italy. It was much en couraged in the fifteenth century, and the sixteenth century can also boast of very distinguished artists in this class. In
the succeeding century there was a eensider able falling off, but in the eighteenth the art again rose.
Rome is now the chief seat of the art of cameo-cutting. There are two kinds: those cut in pietra dare, or hard stone, and those cut in shell. The stones most Prized for this purpose are oriental onyx and Tided they have A least two different Mews in parallel layers. The value of the stone is greatly increased if it has four or five differ ently coloured parallel layers, preyided that the layers are so thin as to assist in rearliillg the device of the cameo. For example, a specimen of stone which had finu parallel layers might be useful for a cameo Mincrya; where the ground would be (say) dark gray, the face light, she bust and helmet black, and the crest over the helmet brown or gray. All such camei are wrought by a lapidary's lathe with pointed instruments pf steel, arid by means of diamond dust. Shell cameos are cut from large shells found on the African and Brazilian coasts, and generally show two layers, one white, and the ether either POP coffee colour or deep reddish orange. subject is cut with small steel chisels out of the white portion of the shell. The gem camel are far more costly than those made of shells.
At the Mediaeval Exhibition of 18513, eery beautiful specimens of the cameo were ex hibited in sardonyx and blood stone.
Camei to the value of 6,5021. were imported from France in 1817.