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

Stosch’s book Gemmae antiquae caelatae, published in 1724, was largely successful, establishing him as the foremost and widely respected authority in the field of engraved gems. It raised a great deal of interest in intaglios and cameos in general and in the signed ones in particular. Even though it was not without flaws—since it has been recently revealed that 21 intaglios and cameos published by Stosch were not genuine ancient works, nine more are ancient but with their signatures added in modern times, and another three bear the names of their owners rather than signatures of their makers (cf. Appendix 1 for a discussion on individual gems)—still, it set outstanding standards not only in the field of glyptics but archaeology in general. This is because Stosch focused his research on a very peculiar problem. Rejecting typical subject-matter organisation, he listed the objects in alphabetical order of engravers, which allowed several works attributed to one artist to be observed at the same time. Moreover, Stosch provided full information on the published gems for the first time, not only discussing their subject matters but also provenance, the gemstones they were made of, and individual styles. But above all, he published particularly accurate and faithful illustrations. All these aspects made the book a highly successful volume. A classic of the glyptic arts literature and now quite scare as many volumes were split up to frame and sell the plates.