Engraved Gems (Classic Reprint): Signets, Talismans and Ornamental Intaglios, Ancient and Modern - Couverture souple

Osborne, Duffield

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1333534620 ISBN 13 : 9781333534622

Editeur : Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

A concise guide to the art and meaning behind Graeco-Roman gems.

Engraved Gems unveils how small stones carried big stories, from gods and heroes to talismans and daily life.

This volume surveys the spectrum of ancient gem engraving, tracing how subjects, styles, and techniques reflect broader cultural shifts. It weaves together myth, religion, and artistry to show what these stones tell us about the minds of the people who wore them. Rich plate illustrations illuminate the ideas and motifs that traveled across Minoan, Greek, and Roman worlds into the empire’s later periods.

• Learn how Apollo, Artemis, Helios, the Muses, and other deities are depicted on gems and what their poses and symbols signify.
• See how ancient engravers used tools and styles to create portraiture, mythic scenes, and talismanic images.
• Understand how gems functioned as personal tokens, status markers, and links to ritual or protective powers.
• Explore how the art changes across periods, from early Greek to Graeco-Roman to the Later Empire, with notes on technique and interpretation.

Ideal for readers of art history, archaeology, and ancient religion who want a grounded, image-rich account of how gems captured a world of belief, beauty, and craft.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

During the Eighteenth Century, the so-called Century of the Dilettanti ,and down to the fifth decade of the nineteenth, no branch of the art humanities occupied so prominent a place as did the study and appreciation of the engraved gems of classic times. In their numbers, in the perfection of their preservation, and in their intimate relations to the personal lives of the old Greeks and Eomans, they appealed alike to the student of archseology and to the lover of antiquity for its own sake; while the collector, following fast in the tracks of such leadership, soon made them the most fashionable of his desiderata. Every man who had any pretension to culture and taste posed as a connoisseur; kings and queens felt themselves lacking in their duty to archseology and art unless they formed and fostered national cabinets. Even in ancient Rome there were collectors. Scaurus, the stepson of Sulla, is the first of whom we find record. Later, Mithridates, the great king of Pontus, had a collection which his conqueror, Pompey, seized and consecrated in the Capitol. Julius Cffisar made no fewer than six, all of which he gave to the temple of Venus Genetrix, and Marcellus, the son of Octavia, presented one to the temple of the Palatine A pollo. With the revival of taste and learning that followed the Middle A ges, the interest in engraved gems sprang up again. It found favor with the humanist popes and the princes of the house of Medici. Lorenzo the Magnificent was a most discriminating collector not only of the antique but also of the best work of his own time for which end he sought to bring the best artists to Florence. The LAVE. MED inscribed on many stones indicate that they once belonged to this famous amateur. Michael Angelo went into ecstasies over the Minerva head obtained by Cellini in 1524 from some workmen in a vineyard.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

About the Publisher

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Forgotten Books
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1333534620
• ISBN 13: 9781333534622
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 471
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Copytech (UK) Ltd, Trading as Printondemand-worldwide.com; gpsr@podww.com; ; 9 Culley Court; Orton Southgate; Peterborough; Cambridgeshire; PE2 6WA; Royaume-Uni
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