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Sardonyx

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SARDONYX.
291
it was, says Pliny, a great defect if the white zone spread unevenly, and did not keep itself together in a perfect band. When intagli are found on a Sardonyx, they are always sunk but slightly into, or rather sketched upon, the surface, so as to be invisible at a trifling distance.
It was for camei that this material was specially reserved ; the various shades, taken advantage of with singular dex­terity by the artist, enabled him to add the charm of colour to the relief.* This may be considered a symptom of de­clining taste ; certain it is that such works chiefly belong to Roman and Imperial times. The most remarkable example that I have observed of this skilful adaptation of the design to the material is a quadriga in the Trench Collection, where each of the four horses is worked out in a perfectly distinct colour. The Marlborough Antonia too, admirable in point of art, exhibits a most judicious employment of two shades, black and brown, and of a milky white, in the hair, background, and the flesh.
The largest slab of Sardonyx known is that forming the Carpegna Cameo (in the Vatican), 16 inches long by 12 deep. The subject, the " Triumph of Bacchus and Ceres," in a car drawn by Centaurs, is executed with great spirit in
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