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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

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CUP OF CHOSROES I.                         361
on gold as exquisitely finished and as spirited as the best paintings upon ivory.
This also is the method employed by the Chinese. It seems at variance with the nature of that race to suppose they learnt the art from the Europeans. In fact they have applied it to works on a much larger scale than were ever attempted elsewhere. We have from that country tall ewers, capacious basins, elaborate vases, perfectly painted with enamels of the most vivid colours, and possessing this superiority over European enamelled work, that they are not injured by the contact of boiling water.
CUP OF CHOSROES 1.
The sole relic of the splendour of the greatest of the Sassanidse, the " Nourshirwan the Just," so famed in Persian story, is the Cup of Chosroes I., now deposited in the Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris. For more than ten centuries had it been preserved in the treasury of the Abbey of St. Denys, to which it had been presented by Charles the Bald ; where it was ever held in the highest veneration as the very cup of King Solomon, " whose figure (according to Dom Doublet), drawn after the life, seated upon his throne, with steps adorned with lions on each side, as Holy Scripture represents him, appears cut in relief upon a very excellent and large white Sapphire set in the bottom. Also is it enriched around the brim with Jacinths, and inside with very fine Garnets and very fine Emeralds." Thus its value as a Scriptural relic was enhanced by the supposed inestimable worth of the precious stones enclosed within its circumference. But, alas ! these gems, subjected to the severity of modern criticism, prove to be but paste and crystal, and the ownership has been
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