538 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Charlemagne had two ivory gates of Byzantine vrorkmanship. 

 The episcopal chair of St. Vitalis, a work of the sixth century, is 

 a fine specimen. Ivory seems to have become scarce in the 

 twelfth century, and bone was largely used for carving, but dur- 

 ing the middle ages ivory again became plentiful, and with the 

 renaissance the art of carving reached perfection. 



Florence, Flanders, and Germany were great centers. Cellini, 

 Michael Angelo, Raphael, Dlirer, and others tried the old-new 

 art. In the seventeenth century there were many celebrated 

 ivorists. Monks in cloisters frequently devoted a life to carving 

 a crucifix ; there are several specimens in different museums. 



Schliemann, in his excavations at the supposed site of Troy, 

 found many articles of ivory, useful and ornamental. The French 

 town of Dieppe has had celebrated ivory factories since the fif- 

 teenth century, and is still extensively in the trade ; but it is in 

 the East, and especially in China, that ivory is most highly prized 

 and worked into decorative forms. 



No amount of care and patience is considered excessive among 

 the Chinese in this work of ivory-cutting. This is evident in 

 the extremely minute and delicate workmanship of their carved, 

 lacelike trays, while their nests of concentric ivory balls are well 

 known and are reckoned among the puzzles of industrj^ 



The earliest recorded history we might say prehistoric, the 

 hieroglyphical that has come down to us has been in carvings 

 on ivory and bone. Long before metallurgy was known among 

 the prehistoric races, carvings on reindeer horn and mammoth 

 tusk, evidence the antiquity of the art. Fragments of horn and 

 ivory, engraved with excellent pictures of animals, have been 

 found in caves and beds of rivers and lakes. There are specimens 

 in the British Museum, also in the Louvre, of the Egyptian skill 

 in ivory carving, attributed to the age of Moses. In the latter 

 collection are chairs or seats of the sixteenth century B. c. inlaid 

 with ivory, and other pieces of the eleventh century b. c. We 

 have already referred to the Nineveh ivories. Carving of the 

 " precious substance " was extensively carried on at Constanti- 

 nople during the middle ages. Combs, caskets, horns, boxes, etc., 

 of carved ivory and bone, often set in precious stones, of the old 

 Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods, are frequently found in tombs. 

 Crucifixes and images of the Virgin and saints made in that age 

 are often graceful and beautiful. The Chinese and Japanese are 

 rival artists now in their peculiar minutiic and detail. 



Nothing is wasted in manipulating ivory ; all dust, shavings, 

 chips, and small pieces are utilized by being converted into gela- 

 tin, or ivory black, or artists' pigments ; confectioners and chefs 

 make use of ivory dust. Owing to the constantly increasing price, 

 many attempts have been made to imitate ivor}^ but with poor 



