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12
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THE BOOK OF THE PEARL
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for
earrings, notably the Venus de Medici now in the Tribuna of the Uffizi,
Florence; and a magnificent pair of half-pearls is said to have
decorated the Venus of the Pantheon in Rome.1 Pearl grape
earrings are shown on the artistic intaglio by Aspasios, representing
the bust of the Athene Parthenos of Phidias, which has been in the
Gemmen Münzen Cabinet at Vienna since 1669.
The
beautiful Tyszkiewicz bronze statuette of Aphrodite was acquired in
1900 by the Boston Museum "of Fine Arts, and has even yet a pearl in a
fairly good state of preservation suspended from each ear by a spiral
thread of gold which passes quite through the gem and also through the
lobe of the ear. This statuette has been described as "the most
beautiful bronze Venus known."2 Professor Froehner considers that it belongs nearer to the period of Phidias (circa 500-430 B.c.) than to that of Praxiteles (circa 400-336 B.c.) ; but Dr. Edward Robinson does not concur in this opinion, and refers it to the Hellenic period (circa 330-146 b.c.).
However,
considering the very large accumulations, relatively few pearls of
antiquity now remain, and none of these is of great ornamental value.
Those in archaeological collections and art museums are more or less
decayed through the ravages of time and accident to which they have
been subjected. While coins, gold jewelry, crystal gems, etc., of
ancient civilizations are relatively numerous, the less durable pearls
have not survived the many centuries of pillage, waste, and burial in
the earth.
A
well-known instance of this decay is found in the Stilicho pearls,
which owe their prominence to the incident of their long burial. The
daughters of this famous Roman general, who were successively
betrothed to the Emperor Honorius, died in 407 A.D., and were buried
with their pearls and ornaments. In 1526, or more than eleven
centuries afterward, in excavating for an extension of St. Peter's,
the tomb was opened, and the ornaments were found in fair condition,
except the pearls, which were as lusterless and dead as a wreath of
last year's flowers.
1 See p. 449. * Froehner, "La Collection Tyszkiewicz," Munich, 1892.
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