CAMMEO. — A gemstone carved in relief, deriving the difference in colors from the various layers of hard stones. The first and principal workshops for cameos arose in Asia and in Alexandria in Egypt, whence comes the famous Farnese Cup, formerly owned by Lorenzo il Magnifico and now in the museum of Naples.
This art, besides mythological scenes, developed in portraiture, among which the two large cameos called those of the Ptolemies are famous; one is in Leningrad and the other in Vienna. The latter bears idealized portraits of Alexander the Great and his mother Olimpia. The art of cameos reached its greatest development at the courts of the Roman emperors, reproducing their effigies and deeds. Augusto brought Dioscuride with him from the East; he became supreme in this art and was succeeded by his equally skilled sons Illo and Erofilo. Dioscuride is credited with the famous Gemma Augustea in Vienna. In Constantinople, the workshops at that court achieved broad development, and there the art of engraving hard stones also reflected the new directions of taste. Later, many treasures of Western churches were enriched with precious gems and cameos originating in Byzantium. The courts of the Renaissance boasted many specimens. Then their character became uniform, and in the eighteenth century Rome produced highly skilled imitators of ancient works, true miniaturists in relief. In the nineteenth century, as masters became rarer, the making of cameos returned to the sphere of luxury jewelry, where it has remained to the present day. — Vedi Tav. XXXI.