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

Engraved Gems: Signets, Talismans and Ornamental Intaglios, Ancient and Modern is a detailed survey of ancient and modern gem engraving, focusing on how signets, talismans, and ornamental intaglios were imagined and used across cultures. It illuminates the subjects and symbols that appear on Graeco-Roman gems and the ways artists translated myths, gods, and daily life into small, lasting works of art.

This edition guides readers through key subjects, from the major gods and their roles to the craft of gem engraving, with plates and notes that connect image to meaning. It emphasizes how gems served as personal seals, ritual objects, and tokens of status throughout antiquity and into later periods.

• Clear explanations of common figures and symbols found on Graeco-Roman gems


• Close looks at how signets and talismans were used in daily life and ritual


• Notes on period styles, engraving techniques, and the artistic context

Ideal for readers of art history, archaeology, and ancient jewelry who want a grounded, illustrated guide to these tiny but telling objects.

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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