CAMEOS. 



717 



nificent single head, :i poi'trait of the Kiiipcror (Maiidius. iii('iisiiriii<j: 

 7^ by 5^ inches, hut badly hroki'ii, is in (he loyal colU'ctioii at Windsor. 



Amonir the Renaissance cameos, as far as I know, there is only one 

 of great celebrity, that is the small marriage group of Eros and 

 Psyche, falsely signed " TPf^nN EUOlKi;' which was formerly 

 in the Marlborough collection and has now gone to America. 



Besides the usual form of poi'd-ait or subject cameos so well known 

 to us, samples of which you have just seen, there is another class which 

 is important and perhaps not so well known oi- appreciated as it ought 

 to be. These are the vases, dishes, and cui)s which are cut as cameos 

 and made out of nodules of onyx or of blown and cut glass. There 

 are now but few- ancient examples of this development of the art of 

 the cameo cutter left; most of them have succumbed to the destroy- 

 ing influence of time. It is said that when the Roman (ieneral Pom- 

 pey brought back from Egypt the treasure he had captured from 

 Mithridates, King of Pontus (first century B. C), there Avere some 

 '2,000 cups of carved hard stone among it. One of these is said to 

 exist in the " Cup of St. Denys," now at Paris, but it appears to me 

 to have the characteristics of later work. The " Tazza Farnese," now 

 at Naples, and formerly in the collection of Lorenzo de Medici, is a 

 flat agate dish (diameter about 8 inches), magnificently cut as a 

 cameo, with figures probably of Egyptian divinities. It is considered 

 to have been made during the early Ptolemaic period, probably at 

 Alexandria. The " Vase" of St. Martin,^' now at St. Maurice 

 d'Agaune, in the Rhone Valley, is an onyx cup, dark, still with its 

 Byzantine setting; it is probably early Byzantine work, or possibly 

 late Roman mounted by Byzantine artists. The small but ex(iuisite 

 chalcedony vase (8^ inches high) recently bequeathed to the British 

 Museum by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, belongs to this class. 

 The lip, lid, and foot are of enamelled gold, added probably in the 

 sixteenth century. 



Besides these, which are all of the first importance, are the remark- 

 able works of the same kind, but executed in glass; the Portland vase, 

 in the British Museum, the Vase des Vendanges at Naples, and the 

 Auldjo vase in the British Museum. The Vase des Vendanges alone 

 is perfect. These are all antique, and as exquisitely worked as if 

 they w^ere made of the most valuable stones. The Portland vase is 

 the finest of them. There are numerous fragments still existing of 

 vases of this kind which have been broken. 



These glass vases are indeed glorified " pastes," of which numbers 

 were made during the time of the Roman Empire and just before it. 

 As a rule pastes inntated intaglios and were cast from clay molds, 

 and there are examples of paste cameos probably made as early as the 

 second century, B. C These are rarely satisfactory because of the 

 difficulty of persuading the glass for the part in relief to keep to its 



