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To modern work there is practically no worth. Its best estate,
like the celebrated Poniatowsky collection, the wonder of Europe
until its fraudulence was exposed, is skillful imitation of the antique.
Even that has greatly declined since Natter's or Poniatowsky's time.
While the design may be reproduced by clever mimics, the stone
itself has that hard, brilliant polish, that bold, unveiled surface which
differentiates it at once from such art in its prime. The soft hand
polish, innocent of disk or wheel, dependent entirely on emery and
"elbow grease," assisted materially by the passage of time, tells the
authentic article almost as assuredly as the authoritative testimony of
unimpeachable archaeologists.
In those old days, every man or woman with any pretensions to
elegance had a seal ring, which was precisely that to seal the wax
on letters or legal documents. Larger stones also were beautifully
engraved for bracelets, vases, plates, and other ornamental uses,
either domestic or public, but it is these rings which appeal to us
most strongly. The barbarians, after conquering and ravaging the
Roman Empire, put these priceless relics of a prostrate civilization
into the melting-pot for the sake of the gold, throwing away the supposedly
worthless stones, and that is why we moderns have received
such a rich inheritance the ten thousand authentic carved gems now
preserved in all national and some private museums. Tossed aside by
the ignorant and the heedless, Mother Earth kindly took them to her
bosom, to yield them in time, through the efforts of the patient arch-
aeologist, to more appreciative beings.
Some plainly show the effects of the fire; and likely cremation
waS responsible for this not less than the vandals' melting-pot. More,
fortunately, are damaged but little. Often they are engraved with
the owner's name, sometimes with the artist's, again with both. Then
there is the Imperial portrait, frequently with or without a bit of
mythology, an incident from history, a scene in domestic life. All
touch our hearts as only intimate personal possessions, surviving the
wrack of the ages, may and can.
No picture or statue, no church, palace or pantheon, though
great in design and rich in story, can thrill us quite so keenly as these
bits of stones, covered with the'most significant designs, which once
graced the hand of gallant man or lovely woman. Small and apparently
fragile, they have brought down more vivid testimony to
ancient customs, fashions, wars and religions, national and civic
ambitions and achievements, Imperial triumphs and the slaves'
daily grind, than massive tomes or ruined piles.
"Gems," says King, "are the sole imperishable vehicle of ancient
genius ; they alone preserve to us the reflex of the statuary, and of
all of painting, in the times from which they have descended to us."
Another writer declares : "In the gems that have been worn by
any civilized people, we possess an epitome of that people's arts, their
religion, and their civilization in a form at once the most portable,
the most indestructible and the most genuine."
It therefore can readily be understood why an expert in carved
gems must be all and much more than an expert in precious stones.
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