European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

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

4. Engraved Gems, Real And Imitation

Early in the eighteenth century some attempt had been made to excavate the long-buried city of Herculaneum, and later Pompeii. General interest was aroused in the classic forms of art unearthed in these ancient cities. Artists and archeologists flocked to Naples, and fashion took note. Not suddenly but by degrees did the classic influence touch one art after another.

In jewelry the effect was to increase the demand for engraved gemstones, cameos in particular. Immediately there followed a flood of imitation ‘antiques’.

Among those who experimented with making imitation gems was Henry Quinn, a physician, whose name might not have been remembered if it had not been for his young laboratory assistant, James Tassie (1735-99).

The two invented a new form of vitreous paste with which to reproduce ancient gems and medallions, not by copying the engraving by hand, but by casting wax models of the gems.

Tassie became so skillful that his imitations possessed to a high degree the color, transparency and beauty of the originals. His work attracted much attention and he was given access to the finest private collections of ancient gems in Europe in order that he might study and reproduce them. His own collection of reproduction became famous.

At the command of Catherine, Empress of Russia, Tassie made for her copies of all his pastes, a matter of several thousand specimens.

Many of Tassie’s copies eventually became treasured museum pieces. However, to a certain extent it seems to have bene unfortunate for the trade in genuine gems that the copies were so good. Numbers of them fell into the hands of unscrupulous dealers, who passed them off as real, and the too often duped public presently became suspicious of all engraved gems and fearing to find itself deceived, ceased to buy.

More familiar and well known, even down to our times, is the name of the English potter, Joshiah Wedgwood (1730-95). Besides his famous jasperware in classic style, he made cameos for jewelry. Mounted in rings, brooches, or bracelets, his little cameos in delicately tinted jasperware, partcularly in blue and white, became exceedingly popular.

European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)