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CALLAIS AND CALLAINA.
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down
to us, are all executed in the green sort ; the principal being the
bust of Tiberius (Florence), the head as large as a walnut, sculptured
in full relief; and the busts of Livia and the same emperor as a child,
in half relief, on a stone of much larger dimensions (Marlborough)—the
latter a carving of extraordinary merit. The last-named cabinet also
boasts a cameo of still greater rarity— a small portrait of a Greek
prince, in a Turquois beautifully azure, and evidently " de la vieille
roche " in every sense of the term. Antique intagli in this
stone, owing probably to its want of hardness, do not exist at all,
except a few examples in the Sassanian class. But the Renaissance
artists employed it largely for small heads, " en ronde bosse," and yet
more for camei ; such being the true origin of almost all these small
works in Turquois, though usually regarded as antique. The modern
Persians practise the converse art to that of their ancestors, the ëéèïêüëëçóéò : instead
of inlaying gold with Turquois, thoy inlay Turquois with gold :
engraving cyphers and arabesques upon its surface, they fill them with
fine gold, beaten in after the manner of damascening steel. Considering
the fragility of the substance, how this is effected remains a mystery
to European lapidaries.
This stone has pretty much the same chemical constituents as
the Lapis-lazuli, but seems to possess a somewhat softer paste; and,
for the most part, becomes decomposed and chalky by long lying in the
earth, as is often to be remarked in tho Turquois set in jewelry so
discovered though but two or three centuries old.
Ben
Mansur states that the best Turquois came then (as now) from Nishapur
in Khorasan, the rest from Ghasnah, Irak, and Kerman. Of the first sort
he makes seven varieties, according to their relative degrees of hardness, and their tints ; that named after Abu-Ishak being the finest, and the Andelibi, of a milky blue, the weakest. His
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