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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.
361
chased by the astute diamond-merchant their collector, not long previously, for as many pence.
To account for their abundance, it must be borne in mind that for three centuries the Italians were largely manufacturing these articles, their material being the hard glass then made, and their moulds coarse, as their false Agates plainly show ; it is therefore hard to perceive how their fabrications can be dis­cerned from the ancient, being produced under conditions so similar.
As for the fine specimens which began to appear after Homberg had so greatly improved the process, their polish and their soft­ness forbid their entering at all into the question. And under the same head may be classed all that followed ; even the amateurs, whom Goethe speaks of, having made themselves masters of the technical processes when once invented, so as to be able to bring out pastes free from bubbles, and exhibiting a clear impression of the matrix. Modern pastes have one almost certain mark of their origin, when they retain at the back the thin projecting rim of glass formed by the portion superfluous and overlapping the circumference of the casting-box, a con­vincing proof they were never set at all, or even intended for a setting ; and such ought to be put down to the account of the amateur glass workers of the last century.
An interesting lot of the raw stock in trade of some old vitriarius once came under my examination. It amounted to above two hundred masses of glass, in form and size resembling gooseberries of different kinds : a shape given them, as it was to the blanks in the contemporary coinage, to enable them, when semifused, better to take the impression of the mould. Some were of fine colour, others ingeniously divided by an opaque band intended in their finished state to imitate banded Agates. The whole stock, including a remarkably fine bust of Jupiter in relief, of green paste, and a few rudely engraved Sards and Garnets, was said to have been found in one deposit in the vicinity of Naples. Could this account be depended upon, such a collection of the raw material would have greatly illustrated the process used in this curious art : but unfortunately no reliance whatever is to be placed upon the tale of the provenance of any antiques brought
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