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Crystallus, Rock-crystal

Crystallus, Rock-crystal Page of 384 Crystallus, Rock-crystal Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CRYSTALLUS.
115
endure, these early Italian forgers imitated above all the rest the Emerald and the Peridot, for, these gems being but little superior in hardness to paste, such a means of detection could not be safely applied to them.
Although it has been remarked above that no antique intagli in this stone are known to exist, yet there is an epigram by Diodorus (Anth. ix. 776), entitled, " Upon an engraved Crystal."
" The art and colouring Zeuxis well might claim, Yet Satyreius is my author's name, Who in the crystal drew Arsinoe's form, A faithful image with life's beauty warm : An offering to his queen : though small in size, No larger work with me in merit vies."
This was an image of Arsinoë " drawn " by Satyreius, to which the poet ascribes all the " colouring and the elegance " of Zeuxis, strange expressions for a work in a gem. But the term äáßäáëïí * applied to it shows that he is speaking of a bust in full relief, work of which examples in Rock-crystal are not wanting, the most famous being the Odescalchi Venus, nearly six inches high, and executed in the best antique manner ; and, what bears more directly upon the point, the fine Memnonian head in high relief of a young Ptolemy lately acquired by the British Museum.f On the other hand, it was the material which the Renaissance masters preferred above all others
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