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Camahutum, Cameo

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SHELL-CAMEO WORK.
75
Such early shell-camei were doubtless abundant in their time, but have been destroyed on the subsequent revolutions of the mode, for the take of the intrinsic value of their mountings ; the fragility of their substance not allowing them to bravo all such accidents with impunity, like their prototypes in " hard stones." After the above-mentioned period, this art seems to have become extinct ; the material was considered too worthless to be redeemed by any amount of taste it might embody. But in our own times it has taken a fresh and a prodigious development, and is indeed the sole, though bastard, scion of the Glyptic art that yet flourishes in Italy. This revival is due to the introduction of the West Indian conch into the cameo-cutter's atelier ; its numerous and richly-coloured layers of varying depths emulate and often excel those of the choicest pieces of Sardonyx possessed by the ancients. The seat of the art is at Rome and at Naples. At the latter place, from their lower reputation, the works are purchase-able at much lower prices : the subjects are perpetual repetitions of noted bas-reliefs, pictures, or gems. An interesting application of the invention is to the perpetu­ation of portraits either modelled from the life in wax and thence copied on the shell, or, now, done with great fidelity after photographs transmitted from abroad. Saolini bears at present the highest reputation in this line, and has of late, as I am informed, had the ambition to advance to the nobler field of engraving in the true and proper material of his profession. Cameo-engraving in shell has also, within the last quarter of a century, been transplanted to Paris, in whose kindly soil it flourishes as vigorously as when originally cultivated there three centuries ago under the patronage of François I. and Henri II. The French workers—more ambitious than the Italian, the nation of copyists — scorning slavish and unvarying imitation of
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