30 ACCOUNTS, ESTIMATES, &C. OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



(12.) Miscellaneous Greek and Roman Antiquities. 



(13.) Egyptian Antiquities. 



(14.) Oriental and Mediaeval MSS. and Antiquities. 



These collections may be described as follows : — 



I. Gems. 



The entire cabinet of gems consists of 951 cameos and intaglios, of whic!) 748 are 

 ancient, and the remainder mediteval, oriental, or modern. In the ancient series are incorpo- 

 rated 113 vitreous pastes. The collection is arranged according to subjects : firit, Deities; 

 then Heroic Myths ; then Portraits of kings, emperors, and real personages ; and lastly. 

 Scenes and objects fiom real life, or genre. Each yem is carefully and minutely described 

 in a catalogue made by the father of the late Due de Blacas, in which references are given 

 to virorks in which particular gems have been engraved. 



The Blacas Cabinet o\' gems has been known to connoisseurs for many years as one of 

 the finest private collections in Europe. It has been principally formed by the purchase of 

 the chief part of the Strozzi Cabinet, and of the Collections of Dr. Barth, physician to the 

 Emperor Joseph II., and of Baron de la Turbie. Nearly all the most valuable gems in the 

 Blacas Museum come from the Strozzi Cabinet, which was formc-d at Rome more than a 

 century ago, and has enjoyed a high reputation from the time when it was first known to 

 connoisseurs to the present day.* 



The finest gems which have passed from the Strozzi to the Blacas Cabinet have been pub- 

 lished in the "Museum Florentinum" of Gori, and in the works of Stosch, Maffei, Bracci, 

 Winckelmann, and Millin, and more recently in the "Tresor de Numismatique et de 

 Glyptique." Impressions of them are also to be found in the " impronte Gemmaiie" of 

 Cades, and others. From having been so frequently published, these chefs d'oeuvre have been , 

 generally known to connoisseurs since the time when they belonged to the Strozzi family. 

 Several of the most celebrated are inscribed with names, and the gems so inscribed have 

 been in consequence specially subjected to tiie keen and sceptical scrutiny of recent German 

 archaeologists. While the less critical connoisseurs of the 17th and 18th centuries assumed 

 that the names inscribed on gems are for the most part the actual signatures of ancient 

 artists, modern authorities, such as Messrs. Kbhler and Stephani of St. Petersburgh, and 

 Dr. Heinrich Brunn, in his "Geschichte der Griechischen Kiinstler," have generally agreed, 

 that many of the so-called signatures of artists, which occur on ancient gems, were either 

 added in the last century by modern forgers to enhance their commercial value, or were 

 anciently engraved, but not by the hand of the author of the gem; most of these names 

 being prubably those of the proprietors of the gem, some, possibly, names of the artists to 

 whom the work was attributed. In discussing the genuineness of the signatures, it is 

 obvious that the first point to be established is the genuineness of the gem itself so inscribed ; 

 and it is satisfactory to find that certain gems in the Blacas Collection, which were known 

 in the last century as the pride of the Strozzi Cabinet, have retained their ancient reputa- 

 tion ; and though, in some instances, their inscriptions have been su.spected or condemned, 

 the genuineness of the gems themselves as ancient works of art has been very generally 

 admitted by the most recent authorities. 



Among the cameos and intaglios in the Blacas Collection, the following may be especially 

 noted : — 



Cameos,~{l.) The bust of Augustus, with the aegis on the breast. This cameo, which is of 

 an oval form, measures 5 J inches by 3| inches. The material is a sardonyx of three layers. 

 It was formerly in the Strozzi Cabinet; and from its great size, the beauty of the work, 

 and the fine quality of the stone, is certainly the most important gem in the Blacas 

 Cabinet. How it originally came into the Strozzi Cabinet does not appear. Gori, who has 

 published it in his "Museum Florentitmm/' I. PI. 18, p. 47, says that, when in the pos- 

 session of Monsignore Leo Strozzi, at the beginning of the IBlh century, it was ornamented 

 with an ancient gold diadem set with gems, and that, as this was much decayed, the 

 ortner had a new one made, in which the ancient gold setting was retained, and gems were 

 added. This setting appears to be mediteval, and the cameo may therefore, at some time in 

 the Middle Ages, have formed part of a rehquary. Gori, misled by the diadem, publishes this 

 as the portrait of Constantine J unior, an error in which some recent writers have followed him. " 



Though this gem is surpassed in size by some few which are extant in public museums, 

 it is perhaps unrivalled among large cameos for beauty of work and material. 



U is engraved, wiihout the ornamental diadem, ni the "Tresor de Numismatique et de 

 GIvptique ; Iconographie des Empereurs Romains," Paris, 1843, PI. V., 1, where it is 

 erroneously stated to be in the Florence Collection. 



(2.) Onyx cameo ; Augustus, beautifully mounted in gold, with the Capricorn, the 

 siLin ^f the nativity of this Emperor, enamelled at the back of the settino^. The mountino- 

 appears to bo of Cellini's time, and it may therefore be presumed that this cameo was dis- 

 covered 



* Por notices of the Strozzi Collection, see the " Museum Florentinum " of Gori, published in 1731, Preface, 

 p. 14, from which we learn that it was formed by Monsignore Leo Strozzi, at the beginning of the 18th 

 century; also, H. K. E. Kohler, "Gesammelte Schriften." St. Petersburgh: 1851, vol. iii. 



