XIV

NOTES ON THE

of pattern may be found ; but this branch of the art does not appear to have beencarried by the Romans to anything like the perfection to which it was afterwardsbrought by the Venetians.

Pieces of gold leaf are sometimes introduced between the layers of glass, andthese are frequently seen combined with the bands of colour which have just beenmentioned; (see Nos. 75, 76, also Plate II., Fig. 1, and Plate III., Fig. 3).

To the second branch of decoration by colour, viz., that by superposition,belong, in the first place, the cameo glasses, such as the famous Portland vase,in which a paste of one colour has been placed over another, and then carved intothe required design; this no doubt is what Pliny meant to describe when he says“ aliud argenti modo coelatur.” The sculpturing was no doubt mainly executed bythe lapidary’s wheel, but the work may have been finished with the help of adiamond, or by attrition with a file composed of emery or adamantine spar, formedinto a mass with pitch or some other resinous substance, like the corundumfile of the present day. Pliny, it Avould seem, wished to distinguish betweenthat which was merely mechanical work executed by a wheel, and that whichrequired the manipulation of the skilled artist, for he says “ aliud torno teritur,aliud argenti modo coelatur”—the first being what we should call cut glass, thesecond the cameo glass described above.* Roman silver, it may be observed, wasoften ornamented by the same method, and not always beaten out from behind.

The few entire vases of this kind which have been preserved, are remarkablefor their exquisite beauty, and the existing fragments usually exhibit traces ofgood style. Though the Portland vase was found in the sepulchre of AlexanderSeverus, yet, like the elegant amphora in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, and theAuldjo vase in the British Museum, it shews marks of Greek rather than of Romanart. They all seem to belong to a comparatively early date.

The ground of these cameo glasses is most commonly transparent blue, (oftenlined with opaque white to throw up the colour), but sometimes opaque blue,purple, or dark brown. The superimposed layer which is sculptured is generallyopaque white. A very few specimens have been met with in which several coloursarc employed ;d (see No. 133).

At a long interval after these beautiful objects come those vessels which wereornamented either by means of coarse threads trailed over their surfaces andforming rude patterns, such as Figs. 51 and 60, or by coloured enamels merelyplaced on them in lumps, and these, doubtless, were cheap and common wares.But a modification of the first-named process was in use in the fourth andsucceeding centuries, shewing great ingenuity and manual dexterity — that,namely, in which the added portions of glass are united to the body of the cup,not throughout, but only at points, and then shaped either by the wheel or bythe hand. The attached portions form in some instances inscriptions, as

* Apuleius, Met. ii. S3, uses the expression, “vitrum affahre sigillatum.”f See a remarkable specimen in Apsley Pellatt, Plate Y Fig. 1, composed of five layers.