The extremely fine eighteenth-century library of Christ Church, Oxford, provides a very fitting setting for the exhibition Engraved Gems and the Classical Tradition. The significance of this scholarly display lies in its bringing together of gems and intaglios, as well as later impressions and casts in a variety of materials, with relevant books belonging to the library. These luxurious volumes, which date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are illustrated with engraved catalogues of collections which were to inspire the ever-increasing number of collectors and scholars in the eighteenth century, for whom the focus was on Rome and classical antiquity.

One’s first impression of the four display cases is of a modest show, yet they contain not only very beautiful examples of gems and cameos but also a wealth of fascinating information. The exhibition opens with an explanation of Greek and Roman gems and cameos as a major portable luxury art of classical antiquity. Greek gems engraved with intaglio devices were mounted as rings and used as seals and signets. These inspired the Etruscan scarab gems from the second half of the 6th century BC, which were usually of dark cornelian and, from the 4th century BC onwards, were often executed with a drilling technique, ‘a globolo’. An incredibly fine and realistic example illustrates ‘A Man walking a Dog’, 4th century BC, while a second one carved in agate, of the later 2nd century BC, shows a ‘triton holding a trident with a star above’. Both belong to the Richard Falkiner Collection and reveal the amazing quality of workmanship achieved in such objects. The most popular subjects found on classical gems are images of gods and personifications such as that found on a ring engraved with the figure of ‘Bonus Eventus’, or ‘Good Outcome’, 1st–2nd century AD. He is holding the attributes of stalks of grain and a bowl of fruit and is shown concurrently in an engraving in the volume Abrahami Gorlaei Antverpiani Dactylio-thecai… (Antwerp, 1695), which is displayed alongside the ring. Animals were also often represented on seals, as is the case in a ring emblazoned with the Nicolo ‘Bull’ (1st century AD), an object in turn illustrated in Jacob de Wilde’s Gemmae selectre antiquae e museo Jacobi de Wilde… (Amsterdam, 1703). Even in Roman times demand exceeded supply and there are examples ranging from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD imitating intaglios of the highest quality in naturally occurring layered quartzes. These imitations were made from slices of glass sandwiched together and pressed into a mould with the excess removed, although small, almost invisible air holes are found on the surface. Also included in the exhibition are examples of Gnostic gems, also known as Abraxas gems, popular from the 1st through to the 3rd centuries AD, and which like amulets had magical properties and were worn as lucky charms. The main deity featured in Gnostic gems was the Sun God, found in Egyptian and Greco-Roman examples, who appeared in different forms together with inscriptions that reveal many layers of meaning. Cameos start to appear in the Hellenistic period, cut in relief on layered stones, usually sardonyx, representing both secular and religious subjects as well as portraits and often used as jewellery.

Classical gems have always been highly valued and collected. In medieval times they ornamented religious ritual objects; the fourteenth-century reliquary cross of the Kingdom of Bohemia, commissioned to hold the relics of Christ’s Passion, is embellished with no less than nine such gems. They were avidly sought after during the Renaissance not only for their rarity and beauty but also for the insight they provided into classical antiquity. Great collections were formed, notably that of the Medici and the Gonzaga Ducal Court in Mantua, enriching a desire to emulate the triumphs of the Roman Empire and inspiring artists such as Andrea Mantegna and later Peter Paul Rubens. Antique and contemporary gems were treasured by the imperial and royal houses of Europe. Charles I had acquired gems with his purchase of the aforementioned Gonzaga collection, and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, and the Duke of Buckingham were known for their collections in the seventeenth century.

However, it is in the eighteenth century and the reign of George III, who had acquired Consul Smith’s collection in 1762, that the great age of gem collecting takes place in Britain, led by the Dukes of Devonshire and Marlborough and the Earl of Carlisle. Formerly of the latter’s collection is the very beautiful Cesati Cameo, the highlight of the exhibition. It shows Cupid taming a lion, behind which is a maenad dressed in a peplos with billowing cloak, followed in turn by another naked maenad. Carved from five layers of sardonyx and set in a seventeenth-century gold pendant surmounted by a diamond cluster, it provides a very good example of the complicated history attached to many famous gems and cameos. In this case it is signed in Greek letters ‘Alexander F[ecit]’ by Alexander Cesati (1510-64), called Il Greco and known for his habit of writing his name on his works in Greek characters. Cesati was extolled for his grace and perfection by Vasari in the 1568 edition of his Lives of the most eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, where the cameo at hand is mentioned as amongst the carver’s most admirable. What adds to its interest is the accompanying plate engraved by Bernard Picart in Baron Philip von Stosch’s famous volume Gemmae antiquae coelatoe… Pierres antiques gravées, sur lequelles les graveurs ont mis leur noms (Amsterdam, 1724), which illustrates the inscriptions in Greek engraved on the gem. Stosch assembled those gems engraved with proper names which he considered to be genuine and could be read as artists’ signatures. This in turn led to increased demand for such gems amongst collectors and scholars, not least Carlisle, who were keen to study classical antiquities on a more systematic basis, matching signatures to carvers referred to by classical authors.

Attention is drawn in the second display case of the exhibition to a number of important collections, in particular to the ‘Marlborough Gems’, one of the largest of the many collections assembled privately during the eighteenth century, in this case by George Spencer, the Fourth Duke of Marlborough (1739-1817). The status given to this pursuit is demonstrated in the portrait of the Marlborough family by Joshua Reynolds exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778 (now at Blenheim Palace). Here, the Fourth Duke is depicted holding in his left hand a cameo with the portrait of the Emperor Augustus (Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne), his right hand resting on the shoulder of his son who holds one of the morocco leather cases which contained his gems. This collection of 800 gems was dispersed in 1899 but fortunately the University of Oxford’s Beazley Archive maintains electrotype casts and sealing wax impressions made by Professor Nevil Story-Maskelyne in the nineteenth century before its sale. This has made it possible to know the appearance of almost the entire collection, which had also included the gems collected by Thomas Howard (1585-1646), 2nd Earl of Arundel. Spencer acquired these gems from his sister-in-law Lady Diana Beauclerk, including the famous and influential ‘Cupid and Psyche’ cameo, signed by Tryphon. Now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, this object once belonged to Rubens, and is here illustrated in Jacob Spon’s Recherches curieuses d’antiquité… (Lyon, 1683). The Beazley Archive electrotype preserves the early mount shown in its larger, supplementary eighteenth-century setting. Its importance for the neoclassical style fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century is demonstrated by a brooch on view in blue jasper relief that replicates the scene of the Cupid and Psyche cameo, modelled by John Flaxman for Josiah Wedgwood. Available in six different sizes, the brooch was advertised in Wedgwood’s 1779 catalogue, which was to spread his classical designs across Europe as far as St Petersburg. Meanwhile at home in 1797 James Gillray parodied the classical gem in his wicked political cartoon, presented here, of the Whig politician Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby (1752-1834), marrying the famous actress Elizabeth Farren. He is crowned by a cupid wearing the bonnet rouge (red cap and bells), alluding to his republican sympathies.

Another famous eighteenth-century collection, that of Antonio Maria Zanetti (1680-1757), is represented by his Leopard cameo (private collection) of mottled jasper (moss agate), engraved in Antonio Francesco Gori’s publication of Zanetti’s gems (Venice, 1750). This object was much coveted by Marlborough, no doubt because of its provenance, since it had formerly belonged to Prince Eugen, the ally of John Churchill at the Battle of Blenheim, and had been given to Zanetti by Cardinal Albani in 1720. Zanetti had sold it to Marlborough’s cousin, the 1st Earl Spencer of Althorp, while a copy was held in the Duke’s collection. Here both original and copy are shown together. 

Of present-day private collections, the Falkiner Collection is especially interesting as it presents examples from that formed by James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk (1827-1905), which was especially strong on Eastern and Oriental seals. On display is, for example, a Gandaran lapis lazuli, together with one of the red morocco leather boxes embossed with the Southesk family crest that the collection was stored in. Also from the Southesk collection is an intriguing Gnostic amethyst intaglio of a composite figure holding a scroll inscribed with the divine title, IAW (2nd–3rd century AD), here complemented by its illustration in the Reverend Charles William King’s publication, The Gnostics and their remains, ancient and medieval (London, 1864).

Prominence is given in the exhibition to cameos which were much copied in the eighteenth century, and two of the greatest are represented here in plaster casts, the Grand Camée and the Gonzaga Cameo. The Grand Camée de France was the first treasure to be mentioned, in 1279, in the collection of the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, perhaps acquired by St Louis in 1247 in Constantinople. Cut in five layers of sardonyx, it is one of the largest extant examples of a cameo, with twenty-four figures representing Tiberius with his predecessors and descendants. It is especially interesting in the context of this exhibition as Rubens’ painting of it, reproduced here in a photograph, now hangs in the nearby Ashmolean Museum. Rubens would have seen it in Paris when painting the Marie de’ Medici cycle, and in a letter of 1626 to Palamède Fabri, Sieur de Valavez, brother of his antiquarian friend Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Rubens tells Valavez that he will send him his picture of the cameo of the Sainte-Chapelle. Rubens’ son Albert published an engraving after the picture in 1665, which is also shown as part of the display.                                        

 

Rubens was known for his enthusiasm for classical archaeology and owned an important gem collection himself which he hoped to publish with Peiresc. The project was unfulfilled, and he sold his collection to the Duke of Buckingham, who in turn sold it to Gaston d’Orléans. Orléans then bequeathed it to his nephew Louis XIV in 1660. In the eighteenth century Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, later known as Philippe Égalité, had his own gem collection published in two elaborately engraved volumes dedicated to his cousin Louis XVI. These are included here, opened to the famous frontispiece of Volume I (1780). Louis Philippe is portrayed in an oval frame being observed by a seated allegorical figure displaying an open book of engravings while below playful putti peer through a lens to examine rings and the contents of drawers pulled from a large gem cabinet. In this delightful print the superiority of gems over other art forms is further emphasised by the presence of a palette and brushes, and a sculpture of a head with mallet and chisel, which have all been relegated to the bottom left corner. Louis Philippe’s series of twelve cameos depicting Emperors received particular attention, and are here displayed in a set reproduced in wax made originally for English collectors.

The trend for such ‘dactyliothecae’ – commercially produced collections of impressions that were made for connoisseurs, scholars and as souvenirs of the Grand Tour – is explored in the fourth display case. They could be made from a variety of materials by artists producing sets of impressions of both antique and modern gems. These were stored in elaborate boxes sometimes resembling leather bound books with the contents listed on the inside of the lid. One of the most famous and prolific producers, represented here, was James Tassie of Edinburgh, who was able to imitate the original colour of the gemstone, while his coloured pastes were often set as jewellery and are still on the market today. He was to supply Catherine the Great with a vast and comprehensive collection of impressions of antique gems, which no doubt led her to commissioning the famous Cameo Service, nearly bankrupting the Sèvres Porcelain Factory in the process. No doubt due to the high demand for classical gems, forgeries were bound to exist. Prince Stanislas Poniatowski (1754-1833), while staying in Rome, commissioned gem engravers to create a collection of 2500 ‘ancient gems’, many of which were to bear counterfeit signatures of famous carvers. His collection was auctioned after his death in 1839 and a scandal broke out when they were declared fakes. Six of the gems are included here, including one depicting ‘Latona and her children pursued by the python’ by Giovanni Calandrelli, the only artist to admit working for Poniatowski. The late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries saw a demand for both copies of antique gems and new intaglios in the style of the old masters and there were a number of very celebrated gem engravers based in Rome, such as Giovanni Pichler (1734-91). Impressions of Pichler’s gems by Angelo Antonio Amastini (1754-1816), himself an engraver, are on display. In Britain, the gem engraver Edward Burch (1730-1840) was, in 1771, among the first of the elected members of the newly founded Royal Academy, a testament to the importance of gem engravers in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the high esteem in which they were held. Nathaniel Marchant (1739-1816), Burch’s pupil, was acknowledged as the foremost gem engraver of his day, patronised not only by the Duke of Marlborough, but also by Roman princes, and even the Pope. Neoclassical cameos following ancient models along with portraits of famous figures both contemporary and historical, often produced from softer materials such as shell, continued to be popular throughout the nineteenth century.

This exhibition, which originates with the Beazley Archive Research Programme, provides a very rare opportunity not only to see some wonderful examples of important gems and cameos (generously lent by private collectors), but also to see them superbly illustrated in engravings in the valuable publications and catalogues held in the library. The latter had in earlier centuries served to make the actual objects much more visible and provide information to scholars and connoisseurs alike; in the context of this exhibition they serve to bring to life their provenance and reception over time. Substantial explanatory labels and enlarged photographs of the very small, refined gems equip the visitor with both magnifying glass and torch. Fascinating for the scholar and non-specialist alike, the exhibition introduces a less well known form of classical art, which in eighteenth-century Britain greatly influenced those who, having benefited from a classical education and the Grand Tour, were setting the fashion in all forms of literature, architecture and the visual arts.  

‘Engraved Gems and the Classical Tradition’ is at Christ Church Upper Library, Oxford, from 16 January to 3 May 2013.