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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 453 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
VITRUM ANNULARE.
349
met with in abundance amongst other Roman remains even in this country, more particularly the imitations of the Sapphire, a transparent body of the richest blue. Such fragments of the different varieties are collected by the lapidaries in Rome : when cut and polished they are set in bracelets or brooches ; and varie­gated as they are with bright colours capriciously arranged, they show like Agates of a novel and superior species to any from the laboratory of Nature. Translucent blue traversed with opaque white stripes, and green similarly diversified with red, were pat­terns in great demand amongst the ancients, to judge from the abundance of such pieces. But their imitation of the Lapis-lazuli was the most successful of all ; and their reproductions of intagli in this material are the most difficult to distinguish from the real stone, such is their homogeneousness of substance and purity of colour. In such is to be seen the finest paste cameo known (in the glass department of the British Museum), a three-quarter figure of Bonus Eventus (so inscribed) holding a cornu­copia/ The slab is about 8 inches square, and the figure, which is in half relief, has been carefully gone over with the tool after the manner of a cameo in stone.5 Caylus (ii. Pl. 81) has engraved an admirable Medusa, 4 χ 3-1/2 inches in size, in a paste similarly finished off with the diamond-point ; and also a head of Victory set in a massy bronze ring, which he describes as a per-
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