Quantcast
  Due to a new server, slow response may occur for which we apologize Portal logo
Login/Register
Bactrian Gold Treasure from Afghanistan, coming soon....
/gemstones/king-natural-history/page_359 - 2
 

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 453 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
350                             VITRUM ANNULARE.
fect imitation of an Onyx of three layers. Such counterfeits, so completed, often occur, and often are most deceptive, so exactly does their surface imitate the effect of age upon that of the Agate or the Sardonyx. Yet more puzzling must they have been when recent, for Martial alludes to the difficulty of finding a real Sard­onyx at the jewellers' of his day, and the fruitless search occu­pying the morning of his dilettante :—
" Sardonychas veros mensa quœsivit in omni."
Amongst the sorts made in his time Pliny (xxxvi. G7) mentions the murrhinum, or imitation of the famous murrhine stone which these very glass coimterfeits, were there no other grounds for the judgment, would teach us were the bowls in Agate with unorna-mented surfaces, such as India still exports. Glass scyphi, exactly reproducing the clouds and shades of brown and white Agate, still exist both whole and in fragments. The still more expen­sive vasa onychina, cut in Onyx concentrically stratified, and having their exterior enriched with relievi, upon the dark ground, in the white superstratum, were emulated in this cheap material and with admirable taste ; in fact, these substitutes infinitely excel in point of art their prototypes in the so highly priced stone. A fine example is the elegantly shaped vase of the Museo Borbonico, entirely covered with a network of vines in a delicate white upon a dark-blue ground ; both the material and the execution precisely agreeing with those of the far-famed Portland Vase.6 Such relievi were produced by imitating the proceedings of Nature in the creation of the Onyx : the body of the vase was first moulded in the opaque dark-blue pot-metal, over which was fused a layer of opaque white, which was cut away" with the
Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 453 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page