THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVES. 



JULY, 1867. 



CAMEO OF THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS IN THE 

 BLACAS COLLECTION. 



BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., P.S.A. 

 (With a Coloured Plate.) 



Perhaps the most important of the additions made to the anti- 

 quarian department of the British Museum of late years was 

 by the purchase entire, for the sum of sixty thousand pounds, 

 of one of the best known collections in France, the antiquities 

 of the Due de Blacas. The French antiquaries, who regret 

 greatly that they let this interesting collection slip out of their 

 hands, praise our own negotiators for the skill and energy they 

 displayed throughout the whole affair. The due, who, since 

 the overthrow of the elder branch of the Bourbons in France, 

 had withdrawn from anything like political activity, devoted 

 his time and wealth to his museum, to which most of the 

 collections sold during his time contributed more or less 

 largely. He purchased the whole Strozzi collection, from 

 Rome, with the exception of one beautiful gem, representing 

 the young Hercules (Hercules juvenis) , engraved on a sapphire, 

 and bearing the name of the engraver in Greek letters, 

 TNAIOC (Cneius). While the collection was still in the 

 possession of Strozzi, this fine work of art was stolen, and a 

 copy in glass left in its place. Years after, when the col- 

 lection had passed to the Due de Blacas, who imagined 

 that he possessed the original gem, he was surprised at 

 seeing it brought to him, and, discovering the "fraud, he suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining possession of it by purchase. This 

 original is now with the rest of the collection in the British 

 Museum. His taste as a collector appears to have run chiefly 

 upon three classes of objects, Greek and Etruscan vases, 

 engraved and sculptured gems, and early personal ornaments 

 of gold. The first of these three classes, that of the vases, has 

 been made better known to the public than the others through 



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