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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.                               357
I have seen a false Garnet representing a Bacchic Feast with several small figures in the best style, mounted, in virtue of its supposed value, in a magnificently enamelled gold ring of the times of Clement VII. But the paste most in use during the period was an opaque kind, a dull grey marbled with green and red, badly counterfeiting the Agate, but hard, taking a good im­pression of the matrix, and having much the look of a real stone, especially when polished. This false Agate is particularly men­tioned by De Boot. But all that was done in this line was of small account until the art was taken up by the Eegent Orleans, under whoso patronage it rapidly attained to perfection and celebrity, its productions far excelling the best left by the ancients in this particular walk of art.
Clarac gives the following history of the Orleans Pastes; " Having engaged (1691-1710) the services of the celebrated chemist Homberg, and assisting him with his own hands in his operations, in a laboratory established within the Palais Royal, the Eegent made him reproduce in glass-pastes all the gems that he himself had collected ; and besides these, a large number selected from the royal cabinet. It is said that he made six complete sets of these pastes, one of which Clarac himself pos­sessed, the bequest of M. Gosselin of the Academy. In the keeping of the latter it had been for many years, and always was regarded as one of the six original sets proceeding from the Eegent's own laboratory. It had, however, been augmented by several additions ; pastes probably made by Clachant and Mdlle. Falloux, who had been instructed by Homberg in the manu­facture, and set up as dealers in its productions.
" These pastes of the Eegent's are both in a very fine glass and in enamel, and exactly reproduce the colours of the original stones. It is evident that they were produced with the utmost carefulness ; the substance is very dense, and free from flaws and air-bubbles. The intagli in it are clear, lustrous, and inter nally polished, a result extremely difficult to obtain.5 When held up against the light the transparent kinds amongst them produce by the richness of their colours precisely the effect of real stones.
4:' And which indeed no pastes of any other fabrique ever exhibit.
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