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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 384 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
340                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
In the crowns of the Gothic nobles discovered at Guer-razar false Emeralds and Opals may be detected amongst the real stones, evidently intended to pass for such, and particularly to replace the Emerald, which appears to have been then excessively rare in Spain, though the court-jeweller had abundance of the most beautiful Sapphires at his command. (' Precious Stones,' p. 311.)
But what is most strange, that masterpiece of Celtic bijouterie, the far-famed Tara Brooch, exhibits specimens of this art, in the shape of four female heads in red paste, all from the same mould, set in the handle of the jewel, and clearly belonging to the same style as the rest of the ornamentation.
Antique pastes are often to be met with retaining their ancient bronze settings. The most interesting example of the class I have met with is in the Waterton Dactyliothea, and was found on the finger of a skeleton in an Etruscan tomb. The ring had been strongly gilt, and was set with a good paste, a long pointed oval, moulded upon an intaglio, in a very archaic style, of Bacchus and Ampelus. But pastes seldom appear in rings of gold ; just as might have heen expected, for they were by Their nature the substitutes for real stones to the lowest vulgar and to slaves. Pliny mentions the glass gems from the rings of the populace, in his above-quoted notice of the white paint thence called " annulare." A paste cameo, however, a seated sphinx, a good imitation of the Sardonyx, set in a massy gold ring, once came in my way : but the cameo had beyond all doubt been palmed off upon the ancient buyer as a true gem and the same may be supposed the case with the counter­feited Carbuncle intaglio, a vase, elegantly set in gold, also amongst Mr. Waterton's. Similar frauds remind us of the jocular punishment inflicted by Gallienus upon the jeweller who had thus taken in his Empress, Salonina, by selling her
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