Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

3. Cameo Portraits

In Alexander’s reign there appeared the first true cameo, but not until later, during the supremacy of Rome, did this type of gem cutting gain the popularity which at various periods it has held since then, sometimes rising to prominence in the world of fashion, sometimes almost forgotten by it.

The cameo, which has been called a great technical innovation, is the reverse of an intaglio. The design, instead of being hollowed out so that it lies below the surface of the stone, is carved in relief—that is, it rounds above its background like a miniature bas-relief. It could not be used as a seal but was purely ornamental. Cameos were cut not only in sardonyx—the design carved in the upper white layer of the stone with its underlying red-brown layer serving as a background—but they were frequently cut in stones of a single color, such as sard, and even the transparent garnet, peridot, ruby and, more rarely, emerald.

Portraiture, in ancient Egypt, had been carried to a high point, but it was the sculptor not the lapidary who was called upon to make likeness in stone. In Greece, the engraver of gems at first depicted gods and goddesses, often full-length figures, but never portraits of real people. During the reign of Alexander, however, the engraver of gems ventured into the field of portraiture. Trained to portray the surpassing beauty of the gods, he perhaps found it difficult, in the beginning, to relinquish the ideals of proportion and contour required in deities. At any rate, his first efforts at human portraiture were rather too godlike to be good likeness. One looks upon those all too perfect Greek profiles with some doubt as to their truth. It took many years and the fall of Greece to bring gem portraiture down to the hard facts of realism.

The young Alexander was a beautiful youth—a fact fully appreciated by himself. And when, in due course, his beard began to grown he refused to allow the classic contours of cheek and chin to be thus hidden from view, so he shaved, and thereby set a fashion in Greece and Italy which lasted hundreds of years. Although he lived to the age of thirty-three his portraits on coins and gems always show him as an ageless, beardless youth.

His ‘engraver in ordinary’ was Pyrgoyteles—he alone was permitted to cut the royal likeness. ‘If any other artist should be discovered to have cut the most sacred image of the sovereign, the same punishment should be inflicted upon him as was appointed for sacrilege.’

After the death of Alexander, the gem cutter, no longer forbidden to ‘cut the most sacred image of the sovereign,’ engraved many stones with the divine profile. They were for the most part deep cut intaglios. In spite of the fact that cameo cutting was especially suited to portraiture, intaglios long continued to outnumber cameos. The great popularity of the little gems bearing the portrait of Alexander is believed to have originated in the idea that since he had been such a favorite of fortune his likeness on a precious stone must bring good luck to its owner.

In the period between the death of Alexander and the conquest of the East by Rome, the work of the Greek goldsmith underwent great changes. Gems from far places were now at the disposal of the jewelry maker. Precious stones traveled in company with ginger, pepper, and Chinese cinnamon up the Persian Gulf in galleys and then across the Arabian desert on camel back to the many Mediterranean ports which were a part of the Hellenistic world. Now, for the first time, was introduced the true topaz, the color clear, yellow wine; also the amethyst, long known in Egypt but new to the Greeks; and there was a new stone so exactly the color of sea water that it was said to become invisible if submerged in it, so transparent was the gem—hence its name, ‘aquamarine’. Another new stone was the Syrian garnet, deep red purple in color; and since it was a soft stone it was very popular with the engraver. He gave it a flat base and a strongly convex top, and on this arched surface he engraved figures and portraits.

In its new form the ring stone retained only a trace of the original scarab shape. Any transparent red stone cut in this manner was known as ‘carbuncle.’ Today, only one stone is referred to as a carbuncle and that is a fine garnet cut, as the French say, en cabochon. Large carbuncles were mounted in large rings which were hollow shells, not solid bands of gold.

Rings, necklaces, bracelets and other products of the jewelry shop were an important item of Greek export trade, and Italy was one of the chief trade centers. But all too soon, from the standpoint of Greece, Italy’s position shifted from that of customer to that of master. The Greek craftsman became the Roman slave. Fortunately, however, he was still permitted to make fine jewelry.