Cameo

CAMEO. - A gem worked in relief, deriving the difference in colors from the different layers of hardstones. The first and principal workshops of c. arose in Asia and in Alexandria in Egypt, whence comes the famous Farnese Cup, once owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent and now in the museum of Naples.

This art, besides mythological scenes, developed in portraits, among which famous are the two great c. known as those of 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 of his mother Olympias. The art of c. found its greatest development at the courts of the Roman emperors, reproducing their likenesses and their deeds. Augustus brought with him from the East Dioscurides, who became supreme in this art, and had as successors equally skilled his sons Hyllus and Erophilus. To Dioscurides is attributed the famous Gemma Augustea of Vienna. At Constantinople the workshops had wide development at that court, where even the art of engraving hardstones reflected the new orientations of taste. Later many treasures of the Western churches were enriched with gems and precious c. coming from Byzantium. The courts of the Renaissance boasted many examples of them. Then their character became uniform, and in the eighteenth century there were in Rome highly skilled imitators of the antique, true miniaturists in relief. In the 19th century, with masters having become rarer, the working of c. fell back into the field of luxury jewelry, where it has remained ever since. - See Pl. XXXI.

Emma Amadei