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Ch. 4: Caelatura, Antique Plate

Ch. 4: Caelatura, Antique Plate Page of 377 Ch. 4: Caelatura, Antique Plate Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CAELATURA.
141
of which are, indeed, perfect torentic masterpieces. After­wards, as an old Roman goldsmith informed me (who could remember the last days of the business) an expeditious sub­stitute was devised by taking from the model a hollow matrix in " fusible-metal," into which the soft plate of gold was beaten with a leaden punch, and then finished off with the graver.
The Greeks called the art of working in relief, in what­ever metal,and asoribed the invention to Phidias. Of this style in bronze the British Museum possesses the two finest specimens extant ; the " Bronzes of Siris," forming the shoulder-plates of a cuirass (supposed that of Pyrrhus), embossed with Heroes combating Amazons, and the yet more admirable mirror-case, or discus, with the "Marriage of Anchises and Venus," in the highest possible relief. The particular branch, however, prac­tising in silver, only came into high repute under the rich and luxurious successors of Alexander.* The torentic artists went by the name of " Crustarii," amongst the Romans, from their small relievi being termed " crustœ," because used for incrustation of vessels. " Emblemata," however, was the more usual term for their productions, from the mode of their application to the surfaces decorated, being " let into " moulded frames soldered upon the ex­terior of the plate, so that the emblema, merely secured by claws, could be removed at pleasure ; a mode of spolia-
Ch. 4: Caelatura, Antique Plate Page of 377 Ch. 4: Caelatura, Antique Plate
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