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JASPIS.
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151
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the
bladder. His patron, the Kaiser, so highly admired the whimsical
variety of shades and colours wherewith Nature has painted the
different species, that he caused a table to be made up out of them, so
ingeniously arranged that their contrast produced a landscape, with its
mounÂtains, rivers, trees, and clouds. The work took several years to
complete, and cost " many thousand gulden." In this piece of " lavoro
di commesso " we discover the first germ of the afterwards so
celebrated Florentine manuÂfacture, the " Pietra dura " mosaic, that
constructs true pictures of bouquets, &c, imitating the flowers
with the natural colours of slices of Agates and Jaspers cut to the
shape required : an art involving incredible labour, and corresponding
costliness in its finished productions.
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