CAMEOS AND INTAGLIOS: The Art of Engraved Gemstones

Cameos and Intaglios are different in technique but have the same aim: to create a work of decorative art where the artist's skill in creating an image acts as a showcase for the beauty of the stone. With an intaglio, the picture is created by cutting into the stone and using what lies below to create the design; with a cameo, the design rises above the level of the stone as a relief. Almost 3000 years ago the Old Testament Book of Exodus describes a high priest's breastplate as having 12 engraved stones, and the Roman author Pliny devoted a book of his Natural History to gems and precious stones. Highly sophisticated cameos and intaglios are pictured from Egypt in the last centuries BCE. The Minoan and Mycenean civilisations had engraved gemstones, with a beautiful example being a bull hit by a spear from around 1500 BCE. Dexamenos is a named artist from 500 BCE and his intaglio of a heron in flight was found in the Crimea. In the medieval period gemstone carving was used on reliquaries and liturgical vessels. A Botticelli portrait from 1480 clearly shows a woman wearing an intaglio pendant, and intaglio became a collectors' speciality in the 17th and 18th centuries, continuing into the public buildings of the 19th century. 20 softback pages, 11 of which are cardboard pullouts opening up into two double spreads. Beautiful colour photos.