gems, glyptic, engraved gems, agate, cameo, intaglio

Zwierlein-Diehl catalogues 946 glass pastes in the Martin von Wagner Museum, Würzburg, principally eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century reproductions of engraved gems. The impressions reproduce ancient intaglios and cameos dating from the sixth century BC to the fifth century AD, together with selected post-antique gems of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries that are closely related to ancient prototypes. Glass pastes were valued as particularly faithful reproductions because their material and appearance more closely resembled the original stone gems than plaster or other impressions. Zwierlein-Diehl attributes the principal group to the workshop of Philipp Daniel Lippert. The catalogue encompasses a broad range of classical subjects, with particular strengths in portraits and gems bearing engravers’ signatures. Because a number of the original gems represented by these pastes are now lost, the reproductions constitute important primary evidence for the history of ancient glyptics and early gem collections.