CAMEO. — A gem carved in relief, utilizing the contrast of colors from different layers of hard stones. The first and principal workshops for cameos arose in Asia and in Alexandria of Egypt, from which comes the famous Farnese Cup, once owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent and now in the Naples museum.
This art, besides mythological scenes, developed in portraits, among which are famous the two large cameos known as the Ptolemies, one of which is in Leningrad and the other in Vienna. In the latter are the idealized portraits of Alexander the Great and his mother Olympias. The art of cameos reached its greatest development at the courts of the Roman emperors, reproducing their likenesses and their deeds. Augustus brought from the East Dioscurides, who became preeminent in this art, and had as successors equally skilled the sons of Herophilus. To Dioscurides is attributed the famous Augustan Gem of Vienna. At Constantinople, workshops at that court saw a broad development in which the art of engraving hard stones reflected the new trends in taste. Later, many treasures of Western churches were enriched with precious gems and cameos from Byzantium. The courts of the Renaissance boasted many examples of them. Subsequently, their character became uniform, and in the 18th century there were in Rome highly skilled imitators of the antique, true miniature relief artists. In the 19th century, as masters became rarer, cameo work returned to the field of luxury jewelry, where it is still practiced today. — See Pl. XXXI.