gems, glyptic, engraved gems, agate, cameo, intaglio, shell, ancient gems, Rome, Greece, ancient jewelry, rings

The remarkable cameo that we are introducing today to the readers of the Revue Archéologique (plate 206) was acquired for the Cabinet of Medals and Antiquities of the Imperial Library in December 1851. The news of the addition of a cameo of such importance to the national collection will, we have no doubt, be received with the greatest satisfaction by lovers of antiquity, for such fortunate acquisitions become rarer with each passing day. Indeed, opportunities of this kind present themselves only at very long intervals; one would search in vain for first-rank ancient cameos in public sales. The richest private collections, such as those of the Dukes of Luynes and Cambacérès, as well as that of M. Roger, contain no more than five or six cameos that could be placed beside the one now under consideration. This extreme scarcity must not be attributed solely to the more modest fortunes of our age; if such cameos are unobtainable, it is above all because the finest examples produced by the artists of antiquity have remained, since the time of the emperors, fixed in the treasuries of the kings and princes who divided among themselves the spoils of the Empire. The beauty of the materials employed by the ancients for cameos and intaglios caused monuments of this class to be regarded as objects of the highest value even during the barbarian ages. Ancient engraved gems served as seals for our kings from the Merovingian period onward, while engraved relief gems were considered marvels, when they were not actually honored as relics. In 1343, King Philip VI sent the treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle to Rome to show the Supreme Pontiff some of the relics of that holy chapter, and especially a jewel called the camahieu. The jewel that the Pope had wished to see was the cameo formerly known as the Cameo of the Sainte-Chapelle or the Agate of Tiberius—in other words, the Great Cameo of France.