Transcriber’s Note
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been maintained. A list of these words is found at the
end of the text.
Text surrounded with = was printed in a black-letter typeface in the
original.
[Illustration: THE GREAT HORSE.
_From an Allegorical Engraving by Albert Dürer._]
RAMBLES OF AN ARCHÆOLOGIST
AMONG OLD BOOKS AND IN OLD PLACES:
BEING
=Papers on Art,=
IN RELATION TO
ARCHÆOLOGY, PAINTING, ART-DECORATION, AND ART-MANUFACTURE.
BY FREDERICK WILLIAM FAIRHOLT, F.S.A.,
AUTHOR OF "DICTIONARY OF TERMS IN ART," ETC.
=Illustrated with Two Hundred and Fifty-nine Wood Engravings.=
LONDON:
VIRTUE AND CO., 26, IVY LANE,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1871.
EDITORIAL NOTE.
The following Papers originally appeared in the _Art-Journal_, for which
they were specially written. They are from the pen of that painstaking
and accurate archæologist, the late F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. The
illustrations also were engraved from original sketches by the Author.
It has been suggested that the results of so much labour and research
should be still further utilised; and that the merit and value of these
Essays entitle them to a more lasting form than is afforded by the pages
of a magazine. The Editor confidently believes that the popular style in
which these articles are written, and the fund of anecdote and curious
information they contain, will render them acceptable to a large number
of general readers.
A second series of Art-papers, by the same Author, is in the press, and
will shortly be published, under the title of “Homes, Haunts, and Works
of Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, and Cuyp; and of the Dutch
Genre-Painters.”
_January, 1871._
CONTENTS.
RAMBLES OF AN ARCHÆOLOGIST AMONG OLD BOOKS AND IN OLD PLACES.
Ancient art--Mediæval art--The Renaissance--Heraldry--Enamelling--
Mosaic--Glass-painting--Gothic metal work--Raffaelle ware--Wood
panelling--Decorative furniture--Book illumination--Engraved book
ornaments--Metal-workers--Ancient jewellery--Decorative art in the
sixteenth century--The Renaissance style--Italian art--The Gothic 1-44
GROTESQUE DESIGN, AS EXHIBITED IN ORNAMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL ART.
Origin of the term _grotesque_--Egyptian boxes and spoons--Roman knives
and lamps--Mediæval grotesque--Misereres, bosses, and capitals--Domestic
utensils--The _Ars Memorandi_--Decorative plate--The Italian, German,
and French goldsmiths--Book illustrations--Grotesque pottery 45-70
FACTS ABOUT FINGER-RINGS.
_Antique rings_:--Egyptian rings--Legend concerning the ring of
Polycrates--Assyrian, Etruscan, and Greek rings--Roman rings--
Inscriptions and devices--Key rings--Gaelic, Celtic, and Saxon rings.
_Mediæval rings_:--Episcopal rings--Thumb rings--Religious
rings--Charm rings--The crapaudine, or toad-stone--The “Kings of
Cologne”--Mottoes, or “reasons”--“Tower” rings--Martin Luther’s
wedding-ring. _Modern rings_:--Signet rings--Story connected with the
ring of the Earl of Essex--Shakespere’s ring--“Gimmal” rings--
Wedding-rings and their “poesies”--Poison rings--Modern versions
of the Eastern tale of “The Fish and the Ring”--Memorial and relic
rings--Death’s-head rings--“Giardinetti” rings--Indian and Moorish
rings--“Harlequin-rings”--“Regard-rings”--“Fisherman’s ring” of the
Pope 71-157
ANCIENT BROOCHES AND DRESS FASTENINGS.
Greek and Roman fibulæ--Roman enamelled brooches--Bow or harp-shaped
fibulæ--Bust of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus--Early grotesque
brooches--Circular fibulæ--Anglo-Saxon pins--Irish and Scotch brooches
and pins 159-183
ALBERT DÜRER: HIS WORKS, HIS COMPATRIOTS, AND HIS TIMES.
Nürnberg--Birth of Dürer--His early youth--Michael Wohlgemuth--Dürer’s
early works--He settles at Nürnberg--His house--Martin Kötzel--Nürnberg
Castle--Dürer’s paintings, woodcuts, and engravings--Melchior
Pfintzing--Pirkheimer--Peter Vischer--Shrine of St. Sebald--Adam
Krafft--Veit Stoss--Hans Sachs, “the cobbler-bard”--Albert
Kügler--Death of Dürer--The Cemetery of St. John, Nürnberg--Grave
of Dürer 185-259
[Illustration]
RAMBLES OF AN ARCHÆOLOGIST AMONG OLD BOOKS AND IN OLD PLACES.
RAMBLES OF AN ARCHÆOLOGIST AMONG OLD BOOKS AND IN OLD PLACES.
CHAPTER I.
Long after the extinction of the practical art-power evolved from the
master-minds of Greece and Rome, though rudely shattered by the northern
tribes, it failed not to enforce from them an admission of its grandeur.
Loving, as all rude nations do, so much of art as goes to the adornment
of life, they also felt that there was a still higher aim in the
enlarged spirit of classic invention. It is recorded that one of these
ancient chieftains gazed thoughtfully in Rome upon the noble statuary of
the fallen race, and declared it the work of men superior to any then
remaining, and that all the creations of such lost power should be
carefully preserved. The quaint imaginings of uncivilised
art-workmanship bore the impress of a strong but ruder nature;
elaboration took the place of elegance, magnificence that of grandeur.
Slowly, as centuries evolved, the art-student came back to the purity of
antique taste; but the process was a tardy one, each era preferring the
impress of its own ideas: and though the grotesque contortions of
mediæval statuary be occasionally modified by the influence of better
art on the Gothic mind, it was not till the revival of the study of
classic literature, in the fifteenth century, that men began to inquire
into the art of the past ages, and endeavoured to obtain somewhat of its
sacred fire for the use of their own time. The study was rewarded, and
the style popularly known as that of the _Renaissance_ rapidly spread
its influence over the world of art, sanctioned by the favour of such
master-minds as Raphael, and the great men of his era.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
It was not, however, to be expected that any style should be
resuscitated in all its purity without the admixture of some peculiarity
emanating from the art which adopted it, and which was more completely
the mode of the era. The Renaissance is, therefore, a Gothic
classicality, engrafting classic form and freedom on the decorative
quaintnesses of the middle ages. Fig. 1 is as pertinent a specimen as
could be obtained of this characteristic: the Greek volute and the Roman
foliage are made to combine with the hideous inventions of monkery, the
grotesque heads that are exhibited on the most sacred edifices, and
which are simply the stone records of the strife and rivalry that
prevailed between monks and friars up to the date of the Reformation,
and are therefore of great value to the student of ecclesiology and
ecclesiastical history. In this instance they seem to typify death and
hell, over whom the Saviour was victorious by his mortal agony: the
emblems of which occupy the central shield, and tell with much simple
force the story of man’s redemption. Mediæval art has not unfrequently
the merit of much condensation of thought, always particularly visible
in its choice of types by which to express in a simple form a precise
religious idea, at once appealing to the mind of the spectator, and
bringing out a train of thought singularly diffuse when its slight
origin is considered.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
The easy applicability of the revived art to the taste for fanciful
display which characterised the fifteenth century, led to its universal
adoption in decoration; but the wilder imaginings of the living artist
always tampered with the grand features of the design. The panel, Fig.
2, is an instance. The griffins have lost their classic character, and
have assumed the Gothic; the foliations are also subjected to the same
process. The design is, however, on the whole, an excellent example of
the mode in which the style appeared as a decoration in the houses of
the nobility, whose love of heraldic display was indulged by the wood
carver in panelled rooms rich with similar compartments.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
Heraldry, with all its adjuncts, had become so great a passion with the
noble, that the invention of the artist and student was taxed for badges
and mottoes by noble families. The custom flourished most in Italy,
where the _impresa_ of a noble house spoke to the eye at once, whether
it was found on a sword-hilt or over a church-door. We give as an
instance, in Fig. 3, that adopted by the bold Dukes of Burgundy,
sovereigns in their own dominions, and exciting much terror of rivalry
in the minds of the kings of France themselves. Their _badge_, or
_impresa_, was indicative of their rude power; a couple of knotted
clubs, saltier-wise, help to support a somewhat conventional figure of
the steel used for striking the flint to produce fire; the whole
surmounted by the crown, and intended to indicate by analogous
reflection the vigour of the ducal house. As a bold defiance, a rival
house adopted the _rabot_, or carpenter’s plane, by which they indicated
their determination to smooth by force the formidable knots from the
clubs of the proud rulers of Burgundy.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
The art of enamelling, which had reached a high degree of perfection in
the Roman era, was refined upon in the middle ages, and ultimately its
character was so much altered thereby that it ended in rivalling
painting, rather than retaining its own particular features, as all arts
should do. It may be fairly considered that originally it was used
simply to enrich, by vitrified colour, articles of use and ornament.
Metal was incised, and the ornamental spaces thus obtained filled with
one tint of enamel colour, each compartment having its own. By this
means very brilliant effects were often produced, all the more striking
from the pure strength of their simplicity. It was not till the twelfth
century that an attempt at floating colours together was made, and this
led ultimately to a pictorial treatment of enamel which destroyed its
truest character. The very old form was, however, practised in the
latest days of its use; and our engraving of the very beautiful
knife-handle designed by Virgil Solis at the end of the sixteenth
century (Figs. 4 and 5), was intended to be filled with a dark blue
enamel, in the parts here represented in black, while the interstices of
the cross-shaped ornaments above would receive some lighter tint of
warmer hue. The birds and foliage would be carefully engraved, the lines
of shadow filled with a permanent black, thus assuring a general
brilliancy of effect. Such knives were by no means an uncommon
decoration of the table at the period when this was designed: it is now
a branch of art utilised until all trace of design has gone from it; for
we cannot accept the slight scroll work and contour of a modern silver
knife-handle as a piece of art-workmanship, when we remember the
beautiful objects of the kind produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, gorgeous in design and colour, and occasionally enriched by
jewels or amber.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
There is one class of ancient manufacturing art which has been revived
for the use of the modern world with considerable success. We allude to
the Roman works in mosaic, which have furnished designs for our
encaustic tile-manufacturers and our floor-cloth painters. Quaint and
peculiar in its necessary features, it is singularly well adapted for
artisans in both materials. There is also a great variety in the
ornamental details of ancient pavements, at home and abroad; the
geometric forms being at times very peculiar, as in the specimen we give
in the previous page (Fig. 6), which has been selected from one
discovered at Aldborough, in Yorkshire (the _Isurium Brigantum_ of the
Romans), a lonely spot, containing many traces of its ancient
importance, and which has furnished an abundance of relics for the
notice of the antiquary from the days of Camden, who describes it with
that happy brevity that accompanies full knowledge. The pavement we
engrave may be seen in full coloured detail in Mr. Ecroyd Smith’s volume
on _Isurium_; the borders placed on each side are portions of other
pavements from the same place, selected as showing the commonest and the
most unusual patterns. The variety and beauty of design and colour in
encaustic tiles adopted by mediævalists, may be slightly illustrated by
the quaint specimen of foliation copied in Fig. 7. The conjunction of
four such tiles produces great variety in pattern, and excellent
contrasts of colour.
[Illustration: Figs. 8 and 9.]
Geometric form, in all its endless variety, was particularly studied in
the Middle Ages, and decorative enrichments of all kind subjected to its
ruling control. We add two specimens of glass-painting (Figs. 8 and 9),
which are in reality the same design slightly varied in the disposition
of the tints, and the interlacing of the double or strap-lines of one,
while the other has them single only. The striking variety that any
given design may elicit, by a mere rearrangement of this interlaced
work, or by a different disposition of the coloured compartments, will
at once be apparent; it was worked out with singularly good effect by
the older artists in decoration of all kinds. The key (Fig. 10) and the
latch (Fig. 11) are examples of quaint old Gothic metal works. The
latter is copied from the old Hôtel de Ville of Bruges; the dragon is
used as a lever to lift the latch, and is one of those grotesque
imaginings in which the old art-workmen frequently indulged.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
When the Dukes of Urbino, dazzled with the brilliancy of the Moorish
potters, had determined to rival their workmanship in manufactories
upon their own principality, the so-called Raffaelle-ware soon
afterwards fascinated the Italians, by the quaint design and beautiful
colour of the dishes and vases there produced. Though popularly named
after the great painter, it was unlikely that he had aught to do
therewith; but his designs were occasionally adapted to its use by the
workmen. The circular plateau (Fig. 12) is a good example of the bold
character and vigour of effect occasionally produced in these works.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.]
Wood panelling we have already alluded to, and the large amount of
decoration it occasionally displayed. Fig. 13 is a beautiful instance of
the grace that characterised the style known as the _Flamboyant_, from
the flowing or flame-like curve adopted for the leading lines. In this
instance they are happily blended with the earlier Gothic cusps, and
the quaint ivy-leaves that spring easily out of the severer lines. The
ease with which heraldry may be introduced in the design, gave it a
peculiar charm to our ancestors; in this instance the shields bear the
sacred monograms--a purpose to which they were very commonly devoted in
the church; sometimes being further enriched with religious emblems, as
terse and striking as the heraldic ones we have given in a previous
page.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.]
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
We give two small drawings of cabinet-handles in Figs. 14 and 15, part
of the elaborate fittings of a piece of furniture which occupied the
place of honour in the state-rooms of the wealthy, and upon which the
art of the day was generally lavished with a most liberal hand. Ivory,
ebony, and the rarest woods were employed in their construction,
occasionally _plaques_ of lapis lazuli, or coloured marbles, were used
for the panels; ultimately the whole surface became an encrusted mosaic
of figures, birds, and flowers, in coloured wood and stone, occasionally
framed in the precious metals. The gorgeous taste of Louis Quatorze
excited the fancy of the _ébenistes_ of his court to the most costly
invention. Furniture inlaid with engraved metal-work, or embossed with
coloured stones, oppressed the sense of utility; and when tables,
chairs, and picture-frames were made of silver, chased and overloaded
with the scroll-work he so abundantly patronised, common sense seems to
have yielded its place to mere display. Despite of the costly character
of such works, and their destination as the decoration of a palace, they
are positive vulgarisms, and we feel little regret when we read in
history of the disastrous wars at the close of the king’s career, which
obliged him to melt down the silver furniture of Versailles, and convert
it into cash for the payment of his soldiers.
There was more honesty of purpose in the old art-workers, who never
swerved from a leading principle. Hence the educated eye can at once
detect a piece of genuine old decorative furniture from a Wardour Street
made-up bit of pseudo-imitation. It must be borne in mind that
specimens of genuine old work are by no means common; the abundance
which this street and other localities can supply to order by the
cart-load, are ingenious adaptations of fragments of old work pieced and
placed together for a general effect; but which are sometimes ludicrous,
from the mixture of bits of all ages and style in one cabinet or
sideboard. Some twenty years ago the city of Rouen was a mine of wealth
to furniture makers. The elaborately carved panels and chimney-pieces in
the stately houses of the old Norman capital, were converted into all
kinds of articles for domestic display. The progress of “improvement,”
as well as the slower process of decay, have cleared that place of many
of its fine features of domestic architecture; but its beauties have had
an enduring memento in the curious volumes by the artist Langlois, of
Pont-de-l’Arche, completed after his death by M. Delaquérrière. In this
work every ancient building is carefully noted and described, throughout
every street of the city; and the finest or most curious examples
engraved with a minute truthfulness for which Langlois was justly
celebrated; and which drew forth the plaudits of Dr. Dibdin, in the
sumptuous work devoted to his foreign tour in search of rarities.[15-*]
We propose presently to follow the Doctor in his investigation of old
books, and exhibit some few of the enrichments that artist and engraver
gave to the written or printed volumes which passed from their hands;
at the same time we shall endeavour to take a more general survey of the
adaptation of art to works of ordinary use.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
The quaint manner in which letters were sometimes braced together may be
seen in Fig. 16. Occasionally, a name thus formed in monogram would
require much ingenuity to unravel, inasmuch as the entire letters made
but one interlaced and closely compacted group, each limb or portion of
a letter helping also to form part of another. In the hospital founded
at Edinburgh by the famous goldsmith, George Heriot,--the favourite
goldsmith and jeweller of James I., a monarch who fully appreciated his
art,--the name of “Jingling Geordie,” as his majesty playfully called
him, is sculptured in such a group, which appears at first sight an
enigma few could unravel; indeed, without knowing what letters to look
for, and how to arrange them, it is a chance if they would be arranged
correctly. Such a mode of marking would, however, have its advantages,
for it would enable those who were in the secret to unravel the mystery
of the true proprietorship of any valuable article unfairly abstracted.
The shields in Fig. 13 are filled with monograms less elaborate, but
bearing a sufficient affinity to those alluded to, to aid in
understanding the rest.
FOOTNOTES:
[15-*] “Biographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in France and
Germany.” London, 1821. 3 vols.
CHAPTER II.
We owe the term _illumination_, as applied to the decoration of old
manuscripts, to the mediæval Latin name of the artist himself,
_alluminor_, the root of our English word _limner_, and of the French
word _enlumineur_, one who colours or paints upon paper or parchment,
giving light and ornament to letters and figures. The brilliancy and
beauty of much of this ancient art are marvellous to look upon, but the
names of few of the patient artists, who devoted their lives to book
illustration, have descended to us. There are, however, one or two names
well-known to us, a Julio Clovio and a Girolamo da Libri (Jerome
Veronese), affording a sufficient warrant of the high-class minds who
honoured their art by honouring literature. There can be no greater
pleasure than in turning over the matchless pages of these old volumes,
and seeing them reveal the passages of the poet or romancist, as
understood by the men of the Middle Ages, to whom they were addressed,
or giving us pictures of life and manners of which we possess no other
record. Their value as adjuncts to books, when simply decorative, is now
very generally acknowledged; and the ladies of the present day rival the
cloistered recluses in labouring, like them, to enrich a cherished
volume. It is, however, the art of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries that is now especially imitated, and the reason is to be found
in its showy elaboration of design and colour. There is an earlier
style that presents strong claims to attention, that of the two
preceding centuries, specimens of which are given in Figs. 17-21. In
them will be noticed the Orientalism that occasionally prevails, and
shows its Byzantine parentage; a trace of the Greek volute and acanthus
leaf is visible in Figs. 20 and 21; in the others we seem to look on
Turkish design. The applicability of such fragments of ornament is
manifold.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.]
[Illustration: Fig. 18.]
[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.]
[Illustration: Fig. 21.]
[Illustration: Figs. 22, 23, 24, and 25.]
When the art of engraving aided the press in producing works of a
decorative order, we occasionally turn over pages in which the
master-minds of the day taxed their powers of invention. The old
wood-engravers were supplied by designers with drawings of the best
class, and very quaint and original are the ornaments which embellish
the books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,--particularly such
as were published in Germany, or at Lyons, the latter city being then
most eminent for the taste and beauty of its illustrated volumes, the
former for a bolder but quainter character of art. There are useful
hints to be had in the pages of all, for such as would avail themselves
of minor book-ornament. To render our meaning more clear, we select a
series of scrolls (Figs. 22-25) for inscriptions from German books, of
the early part of the sixteenth century, and which might be readily and
usefully adapted to modern exigencies, when dates or mottoes are
required either by the painter or sculptor. Ornamental frameworks for
inscriptions abound in old books, and are not unfrequently of striking
design and peculiar elaboration; we give an example in Fig. 26, from a
volume dated 1593, as an excellent specimen of this particular branch of
design. Such tablets not unfrequently headed the first page of a
volume, and received in the centre the title of the book. The
wood-engraver is thus the legitimate successor of the older illuminator.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.]
A large demand was made on the imaginative faculties of the designers of
that day by the metal-workers, the gold and silversmiths, the jewellers,
and all connected with such decorative manufactures as the luxury of
wealth and taste calls into exertion. The name of Cellini stands
prominently forth as the inventor and fabricator of much that was
remarkable; the pages of his singular autobiography detail the peculiar
beauty of many of his designs; the Viennese collection still boasts some
of the finest of the works so described, particularly the golden
salt-cellar he made for Francis I. of France. The high art which he
brought to bear on design applied to jewellery was followed by other
artist-workmen, such as Stephanus of Paris, and Jamnitzer of Nuremberg.
The metal-workers of the latter city, and of Augsburg, had a universal
reputation at the close of the sixteenth century for their jewellery and
plate, particularly the latter. They kept in employ the best designers
of the day, and such men as Hans Holbein, Albert Aldegræf, Virgilius
Solis, and a host known as the “little masters,” supplied the demand
with apparent abundance, but it could only be satisfied by the
multiplication of these designs by means of the engraver’s art. Hence we
have at this period, and the early part of the seventeenth century, an
abundance of small engravings, comprising a vast variety of designs for
all articles of ornament; and from them we have selected, in Figs. 27
and 28, two specimens of those intended to be used in the manufacture of
the pendent jewels, then so commonly worn on the breast of rich ladies.
These jewels were sometimes elaborately modelled with scriptural and
other scenes in their centre, chased in gold, enriched by enamel
colours, and resplendent with jewels. The famed “Grüne Gewölbe” at
Dresden have many fine examples, in the Louvre are others, and some few
of a good kind are to be seen in the Museum at South Kensington. The
portraits of the age of Francis I. and our Queen Elizabeth, frequently
represent ladies in a superfluity of jewellery, of a most elaborate
character. The portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, in our National
Portrait Gallery, is loaded with chains, brooches, and pendants, enough
to stock the show-case of a modern manufacturer. This love of elaborate
jewellery was a positive mania with many nobles in the olden time.
James I. was childishly fond of such trinkets, and most portraits
represent the king with hat-bands of jewels, or sprays of jewellery at
their sides. His letters to his favourite, Buckingham, are often full of
details of the jewels in which his majesty delighted.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.]
[Illustration: Fig. 28.]
[Illustration: Fig. 29.]
Perhaps no article of personal ornament has exhibited a greater variety
of design and decorative enrichment than the cross. It has at once been
made an embellishment and a badge of faith. We select in Fig. 29 one of
singular elaboration and beauty, now the property of Lady Londesborough.
It is a work of the early part of the sixteenth century; the ground is
of frosted gold, upon which is a foliated ornament in _cloissonné_
enamel of various colours. It is also enriched with pearl and crystal;
the lower part of this cross is furnished with a loop, from which a
jewel of value might be suspended.
[Illustration: Figs. 30 and 31.]
By way of curious contrast, as well as to show the style of various ages
in the article of necklaces, we give, in Figs. 30 and 31, two examples
of widely different eras. The upper one is that of a Roman lady, whose
entire collection of jewellery was accidentally discovered at Lyons, in
1841, by some workmen who were excavating the southern side of the
heights of Fourvières, on the opposite side of the Seine. From an
inscribed ring and some coins deposited in the jewel-box, the lady
appears to have lived in the time of the Emperor Severus, and to have
been the wife of one of the wealthy traders, who then, as now, were
enriched by the traffic of the Rhone. The necklace we engrave is of
gold, set with pearls and emeralds; the cubical beads are cut in lapis
lazuli, as are the pendants which hang from others. This love of pendent
ornament was common to all antique necklaces, from the days of ancient
Greece to the end of the sixteenth century. Our second specimen is an
illustration of this: it is copied from the portrait of a lady (bearing
date 1593), and composed of a series of enamelled _plaques_, with jewels
inserted, connected with each other by an ornamental chain.
[Illustration: Figs. 32 and 33.]
We have already alluded to the constant demand on the inventive faculty
of the art-workman for articles of all kinds in the olden times; nothing
was thought unworthy his attention. We give a selection of articles of
ordinary use which have received a considerable amount of decorative
enrichment. The spur-rowels (Figs. 32 and 33), from the collection of M.
Sauvageot, of Paris, are remarkable proofs of the faculty of invention
possessed by the ancient armourers. So simple a thing as a spur-rowel,
in our days of utilitarianism, would seem to be incapable of variety,
or at least unworthy to receive much attention. It was not so in past
times, when workmen even delighted to adorn their own tools. We engrave
an armourer’s hammer (Figs. 34 and 35), from the collection of Lord
Londesborough, which has received an amount of enrichment of a very
varied character. The animals on one side, and in foliated scrolls,
connect the design across the summit of the implement with a totally new
composition on the opposite side. We would not insist on any part of the
design as remarkable for high character; it is simply given as an
instance of the love of decoration so prevalent in the sixteenth
century.
[Illustration: Figs. 34 and 35.]
The highly-enriched knocker and door-handle (Fig. 36) were sketched from
the original, on one of the ancient houses of the quaint city of
Nuremberg. The bell-pull beside it (Fig. 37) is also from the same
locality. There is probably no town in Germany where more artistic old
iron-work is to be seen than in this place,--once the richest of trading
communities, when Albert Durer flourished within its walls, and the
Emperor Maximilian held royal state in its old castle. To all who would
realise the chivalric days of the old German Empire, we would say, “Go
to Nuremberg.”
[Illustration: Figs. 36 and 37.]
The bellows of carved chestnut-wood (Fig. 39) is in the possession of
the Count de Courval. It is of simpler and “severer” design than
common, inasmuch as it was usual to enrich these useful domestic
implements with an abundance of elaborate designs, and fill their
centres with scenes from sacred and profane history.
[Illustration: Fig. 38.]
When ladies delighted in lace-working, and in starching and preparing
their produce most carefully, they showed their good housewifery in
washing and ironing it with their own hands. It was gallantry on the
part of their spouses to make befitting presents of all things requisite
for their labours, and worthy their use. The box-iron we engrave in Fig.
39 is one which has thus been given; it bears the monogram of the fair
lady who originally owned it, engraved within a “true lover’s knot.” The
cupidons of the handle ending in flowers may be an emblem of Love and
Hymen, forming an appropriate embellishment.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.]
CHAPTER III.
Applicability is the most useful characteristic of the style popularly
known as the Renaissance; it is confined to no one branch of art, but is
capable of extension to all, from the most delicate work of the jeweller
to the boldest scroll-ornament adopted by the sculptor in wood or stone.
The Loggie of the Vatican is the best original example of the style as
perfected by Raffaelle and his scholars, and applied to wall-painting.
It was a free rendering of the antique fresco ornament then just
discovered in the Baths of Petus, where extensive excavations were
undertaken in 1506, under the superintendence of the Papal authorities.
The classic forms were “severer” than those in use by the artists who
resuscitated the style, and were somewhat overlaid with ornament. The
details of Raffaelle’s own work will not always bear adverse criticism,
inasmuch as there are heterogeneous features introduced occasionally,
which are not visible in the purer style of antiquity. As the fashion
for this decoration travelled northward, it increased in freedom from
classic rule, and more completely deserved the term “grotesque,” which
it occasionally received, a term derived from _grotte_, an underground
room of the ancient baths, and which we now use chiefly in the sense of
a ludicrous composition. Such compositions were not unfrequent on the
walls of Greek and Roman buildings; and the German and Flemish artists,
with a nationally characteristic love of whimsical design, occasionally
ran riot in invention, having no rule beyond individual caprice. This
unfortunate position offering too great a licence to mere whimsicality,
was felt in ancient as well as in modern times. Pliny objected, on the
grounds of false or incongruous taste, to the arabesques of Pompeii,
though they approached nearer to the Greek model; and Vitruvius, with
that purity of taste which was his grand characteristic, endorsed the
opinion, and enforced it in his teaching. We are often in error when we
blindly admire, or unhesitatingly adopt, the works of the ancients as
perfection. In Athens and Rome in past time, as in Paris and London at
present, we may meet with instances of bad taste; for vulgarity belongs
to no age or station, and may be visible in the costly decoration of a
rich mansion, whose owner is uneducated in art, and insists on having
only what he comprehends.
The decadence of the better-class Renaissance design was a natural
consequence of the licence its features might assume, and in the
progress of the sixteenth century it became thoroughly vitiated. The
troubles which distracted Europe in the later part of that century, and
which led to the devastating wars and revolutions of the earlier part of
the following one, completed the debasement of art-workmanship. Louis
XIV. had the glory, such as it was, of its resuscitation; but his taste
was merely that of an over-wealthy display, which not unfrequently
lapses into positive vulgarisms. The style known distinctively by the
name of this monarch--with all its heterogeneous elements, its scrolls
of the most obtrusive form, fixed to ornament having no proper cohesion,
and overlaid with festoons of flowers and fruit--is more remarkable for
the oppressive ostentation which was the characteristic of the monarch
and his age, than for good taste or real elegance. What a very little
exaggeration could make of this style may be seen in the productions of
the era of his successor, and which the Italians stigmatised by the term
_rococo_.
[Illustration: Fig. 40.]
[Illustration: Fig. 41.]
The examples of Renaissance given in our pages exhibit a fair average of
its applicability. The pendent ornament (Fig. 40) includes details
adopted by jewellers. The shield, with the sacred monogram (Fig. 41), is
such as appeared in wood-panelling. The handle (Fig. 42) exhibits as
much freedom of design as the style could admit; it is quaint and
peculiar, but not without elegance in the mode of bringing the classic
dolphin within the scope of the composition.
[Illustration: Fig. 42.]
The distinctive features of the style may be more readily comprehended
by contrasting it with a few specimens of the so-called “Gothic style,”
a style which possesses the strongest original features, and one which
will yield to none in peculiar beauty and applicability. We give two
examples--the one German, the other French; they are both wood panel,
filled with tracery which bears the distinctive characteristics of the
two schools. The German (Fig. 43) is remarkable for the sudden
termination of its flowing lines, which occasionally gives to the
carving of the epoch an appearance of having been suddenly broken, or
chopped off, in parts. At Nuremberg this peculiarity is very observable;
our specimen is selected from the church at Rottweil, in the Black
Forest, which bears the date of 1340. The French (Fig. 44) is a
favourable example of the Flamboyant style, which gave freedom to the
mediæval rigidity of the Gothic, and paved the way for the ready
adoption of the style of Francis I., which was based on that of the
Italians.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.]
[Illustration: Fig. 44.]
Figs. 45 and 47 display one peculiarity in this northern adaptation--the
introduction of busts, in high relief, in central medallions. It is
sometimes introduced so unscrupulously in the carved panelling of
Elizabethan mansions, that it has almost the effect of a row of wooden
dolls peeping through shutters. The latter of the two examples may be
received as one of the best of its kind, exhibiting the utmost
enrichment of which the style was generally capable, and as few
heterogeneous features, though here they are not entirely absent. By way
of useful contrast, we give in Fig. 48, a very pure specimen of a panel
in Italian workmanship, from a tomb of the sixteenth century, in the
church of the Ara Cœli, at Rome. The flow of line here is exceedingly
graceful; the whole of the details are characterised by a delicacy
unknown to the artists of Germany and Flanders; the torches and volutes
point unmistakably to the classic origin of the whole.
[Illustration: Fig. 45.]
[Illustration: Fig. 46.]
[Illustration: Fig. 47.]
[Illustration: Fig. 48.]
It was not natural to the Roman people ever to forget their great
art-works of antiquity; the influence of the “departed spirits” still
“ruled them from their urns,” as Byron truthfully expresses it. The
artists of Greece and Rome based their compositions on the unvarying
truth of nature; and though the barbaric mind might bear sway for
awhile, it could not triumph but through ignorance. Rome is now the
great art-teacher only because it is the conservator of its ancient
relics; and they have had their influence undiminished from the days of
Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. There are many pleasing bits of design in
the antique city, that show the classic source of inspiration from which
their inventors obtained them. The boy and dolphins, forming the
pleasing domestic fountain we engrave in Fig. 51, is an evident instance
of the influence of antique taste. The abundant supply of water was the
grand feature of the Rome of the Cæsars, as it still is of the Rome of
the Popes; and the liberality with which every house is served has
frequently induced the owners of large mansions to decorate one corner
of their external walls with a fountain, at which all wayfarers may be
supplied. In a recess of the lowermost story of one of the great
_palazzi_ which line the principal street of Rome, “the Corso,” our
second specimen (Fig. 52) is placed. It represents a wine-merchant
liberally pouring from the bung-hole of his barrel its inexhaustible
contents. On great _festas_ in the olden time it was not unusual to make
public fountains run with wine for an hour or two, and this may have
occurred with the one engraved; it is a work of the latter part of the
sixteenth century, when luxury reigned in Rome. As a design it is
exceedingly simple and appropriate, reminding, by its quaintness, of
German rather than Italian design. The old Teutonic cities present very
many striking inventions of the kind: and the promoters and designers of
our drinking fountains may obtain good and useful hints from that
quarter.
[Illustration: Fig. 49.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.]
[Illustration: Fig. 51.]
[Illustration: Fig. 52.]
Our street architecture has shown recently a greater freedom of design,
and range of study, than was ever exhibited before. We may owe this, in
some degree, to the excellent works on the domestic and palatial
edifices of the Low Countries, which have issued from the press, and
have vindicated the true character of the great mediæval builders.
Germany--taking the term for the nation in its widest sense--can show in
its antique cities a vast variety of fancy in architecture and its
ornamental details. Each city may be made a profitable residence for
the study of a young architect; and the superior knowledge of the
leading principles of mediæval art, now exhibited in their adaptation of
the style to home events, is a clear proof that the fact has been felt
and acted on. The “infinite variety” of the old decorator is everywhere
apparent, and the play he gave to his invention. We give in Fig. 53, as
one instance, the ornamental mouldings of the Chapel of St. Nicholas, in
the Cathedral of Aix; in this instance the rigidity of the rule which
enforces geometric form to the whole is softened by the introduction of
the cable moulding to a portion thereof, with singularly good effect. It
is a work executed under the rule of Armand de Hesse, Archbishop of
Cologne, and Provost of Aix, probably about 1480.
[Illustration: Fig. 53.]
The Gothic, therefore, of the best era, was by no means the stiff and
monotonous style imagined by those who only know its details by the
remains of our own ecclesiastical buildings; not that we infer them to
be without much freedom and beauty occasionally, as in the Percy shrine
at Beverley Minster, or the tomb of Aylmer de Valence, in Westminster
Abbey. But we have fewer domestic buildings of a florid Gothic style
than are to be found abroad, and the artists who designed for that style
delighted in new ideas. It is even visible in the works of their
painters and engravers: thus the tracery over the doorway in Durer’s
print of “The Crucifixion,” one of his series of the life of the
Virgin, while it conforms to the leading principle of architectural
design, is composed of branches and leaves which flow with a freedom
belonging more to the painter than the architect. Similar instances
abound in old pictures.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.]
The foliation of German work was generally crisp and full of
convolutions in its minor features, though the leading lines were boldly
conceived. We give an example from a panel carved in wood, in the
Cathedral of Stuttgard, a work of the middle of the fifteenth century.
It is almost a return to the old acanthus leaf, and so completes a cycle
of fine art.
Brief as the review has necessarily been of the decorative arts adorning
life throughout the centuries which have passed in rapid succession
before us, they have taught two great facts--the beauty of art as an
adjunct to the most ordinary demands of domesticity, and the value of
the study of the varied arts of past ages as an addition to the
requirements of our own. “Ever changing, ever new,” may be the lesson
derived from the investigation of any epoch. How much then may be
obtained from a general review of all! Seroux d’Agincourt deduced a
history of art from its monuments;[41-*] and men of the present day have
the advantage of all that the world has produced brought easily, by aid
of the burin and the printing-press, to their own firesides. We are
evidently less original in idea than our ancestors, from the association
of their labours with our thought; but we may yet live in the hope of
seeing some new and peculiar feature in the progress of modern
decorative art obtained by retrospective glances at the past.
It is to the duty of thus learning from the past, we desire to direct
the attention of our readers. Slavishly to copy, or systematically to
imitate, are evils scarcely less reprehensible than to neglect them
altogether; but frequent study of the great masters in any art is
indispensable to those who would excel. It is to the absence of such
study that we may trace most of the defects of the British artisan.
Unhappily, he seldom either examines, reads, or thinks; generally he is
content to work, like a horse in a mill, pursuing the same monotonous
round, producing only that which has been produced before, without
alteration, and without improvement. Until within the last few years,
this defect could hardly have been urged against him as an offence. His
employers did not require advancement, seldom encouraged intelligent
workmen, and rather preferred the mere machine who was content to do no
more than his fathers had done, and who looked upon new inventions as
costly whims or expensive absurdities. There were exceptions--glorious
exceptions; but the rule was, undoubtedly, as we have stated.
This deplorable disadvantage exists no longer; in nearly every town in
the kingdom, of any size, there is some institution where knowledge may
be obtained readily and cheaply. The societies in connection with the
Department of Science and Art now abound with competent masters and
teachers, and all the appliances of instruction.
The South Kensington Museum is alone a mine of wealth. Not only are the
artisans enabled to resort to it freely, but every possible inducement
is held out to them to do so; the superintendents there almost go into
the highways to “compel them to come in.” There is no calling of any
sort or kind that may not be educated here; the masters, as well as the
workmen, of all trades may here receive the education, “free of charge,”
which no sum of money could have procured for them twenty years ago.
Ignorance, nowadays, is, therefore, totally without excuse.
No doubt the seed that has been so extensively and abundantly planted is
growing rapidly up; in some places it has borne fruit. It is utterly
impossible that the existing race of art-workmen, and their successors
“rising up,” can be ignorant as were their predecessors. If they use
their eyes merely, and permit their minds to remain blanks, they must
improve. There is no street in London now that will not teach them
something; every shop window contains a lesson; and it requires no very
large observation to perceive advancement in every class of British
art-manufacture--not, certainly, so marked as to produce content, but
exhibiting ample proof that we are progressing in the right direction,
and leading to the conclusion that at no very distant period we shall
not have to incur the reproach that our artisans are worse educated than
those of Germany, Belgium, and France. These remarks result from the
brief insight we have given in these pages into the rich volumes which
the past has filled for the use of the present. The books to which we
have resorted, and the places in which we have sought for rarities, are
open to most of those who desire to examine them, and who will find an
expenditure of time and labour to any amount, be it large or small,
produce an extent of remuneration of which the searcher will have no
idea until he begins to gather in the profit he has made.
We had intended to supply a list of books, to be obtained either at the
British Museum or the Museum at South Kensington, to which we desire to
direct the attention of our art-producers and art-workmen; but thus to
occupy space is needless. The requisite information can be easily
procured: any of the superintendents, at either place, will gladly
direct the searcher, on receiving information as to his wants. Moreover,
it is permitted, under certain restrictions, to take sketches of
engravings or drawings, and from objects exhibited; aids to do this
readily present themselves.
Books, however, should be regarded only as auxiliaries; they will supply
in abundance material for suggestion or adaptation; although, as we have
already observed, “slavishly to copy, or systematically to imitate,” are
evils to be avoided.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[41-*] “Histoire de l’Art par les Monumens, depuis sa Décadence au
IV^{e.} Siècle jusqu’à son Renouvellement au XVI^{e.}”
GROTESQUE DESIGN, AS EXHIBITED IN ORNAMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL ART.
GROTESQUE DESIGN, AS EXHIBITED IN ORNAMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL ART.
Among the quaint terms in art to which definite meanings are attached,
but which do not in themselves convey any such definite construction, we
may class the term _grotesque_. The term _grotesque_ was first applied
as a generic appellation in the latter part of the fifteenth century,
when the “grottoes,” or baths of ancient Rome, and the lowermost
apartments of houses then exhumed, exhibited whimsically designed
wall-decorations, which attracted the attention of Raffaelle and other
artists, who resuscitated and modified the style; adopting it for the
famous Loggie of the Vatican and for garden pavilions or grottoes.
We may safely go back to the earliest era in art for the origin of the
style, if, indeed, the grotesque does not so intimately connect itself
with the primeval art of all countries as to be almost inseparable.
Indeed, it requires a considerable amount of classical education to see
seriously the meaning, that ancient artists desired in all gravity to
express, in works which now excite a smile by their inherent comicality.
Hence the antiquary may be occasionally ruffled by the remarks of some
irreverent spectator, on a work which the former gravely contemplates,
because he feels the design of its maker, and is familiar with the
antique mode of expression. Thus the early Greek figures of Minerva,
whether statues or upon coins, have occasionally an irresistibly
ludicrous expression: but, as art improved, this expression softened,
and ultimately disappeared, the grotesque element taking a more positive
form and walk of its own.
In that cradle of art and science, the ancient land of Egypt, we shall
find grotesque art flourishing in various forms. Their artists did not
scruple to decorate the walls of tombs with pictures of real life, in
which comic satire often peeps forth amid the gravest surroundings. Thus
we find representations of persons at a social gathering evidently the
worse for wine-drinking; or the solemn procession of the funeral boats
interrupted by a ludicrous delineation of the “fouling” or upsetting one
unlucky boat and its crew, which had drifted in the way; while the most
impressive of all scenes, the final judgment of the soul before Osiris,
is depicted at Thebes with the grotesque termination of the forced
return of a wicked soul to earth, under the form of a pig, in a boat
rowed by a couple of monkeys. In the British Museum is a singular
papyrus, upon which are drawn figures of animals performing the actions
of mankind; and among the large number of antiquities which swell the
Egyptian galleries, there are many that exhibit the partiality of this
ancient people for the grotesque.
[Illustration: Figs. 55-58.]
Our first examples consist of a group of wooden boxes and spoons, all of
whimsical form, and selected from the great work by Sir John Gardner
Wilkinson on the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians.[49-*]
They were formed to contain cosmetics of divers kinds, and served to
deck the dressing-table, or a lady’s boudoir. They are carved in various
ways, and loaded with ornamental devices in relief, sometimes
representing the favourite lotus-flower, with its buds and stalks, or a
goose, gazelle, fox, or other animal. Fig. 55 is a small box, made in
the form of a goose; and Fig. 56, also in the shape of the same bird,
dressed for the cook. The spoon which succeeds this, Fig. 57, takes the
form of the cartouche, or oval, in which royal names were inscribed, and
is held forth by a female figure of graceful proportions. Fig. 58 is a
still more grotesque combination; a hand holds forth a shell, the arm
being elongated and attenuated according to the exigencies of the
design, and terminating in the head of a goose. The abundance of quaint
fancy that may be lavished on so simple a thing as a spoon cannot be
better illustrated than it has been by an American author, who
published, in New York, in 1845, an illustrated octavo volume on the
history of “The Spoon: Primitive, Egyptian, Roman, Mediæval, and
Modern.” Speaking of these antique Egyptian specimens, he says,--“In
these forms we have the turns of thought of old artists; nay, casts of
the very thoughts themselves. We fancy we can almost see a Theban
spoonmaker’s face brighten up as the image of a new pattern crossed his
mind; behold him sketch it on papyrus, and watch every movement of his
chisel or graver as he gradually embodied the thought, and published it
in one of the forms portrayed on these pages--securing an accession of
customers and a corresponding reward in an increase of profit. We take
it for granted that piratical artisans were not permitted to pounce on
every popular invention which the wit of another brought forth. Had
there been no checks to unprincipled usurpers of other men’s
productions, the energies of inventors would have been paralysed, and
the arts could hardly have attained the perfection they did among some
of that famous people of old.”
[Illustration: Figs. 59-61.]
The graceful head and neck of the swan formed for many centuries the
favourite termination for the handles of _simpula_, or ladles. The
Greeks and Romans adopted it, as they freely did grotesque art in
general; and the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibit it in
untrammelled style; while many articles of ornament and use were
constructed in the most whimsical taste. We must restrict ourselves to
three specimens of Roman works, as many hundreds might be readily
brought together from public museums. Our group consists of two
clasp-knives and a lamp. The knife, Fig. 59, was found at Arles, in the
south of France; the handle is of bone, and has been rudely fashioned
into the human form: the second example, Fig. 60, is of bronze, and
represents a _canis venati_, of the greyhound species, catching a hare;
the design is perforated, so that the steel blade shows through it. It
was found within the bounds of the Roman station of Reculver, in Kent;
another of similar design was found at Hadstock, in Essex: nor are these
solitary examples of what appears to have been a popular design in
Britain. The superiority of the British hunting dogs has been celebrated
by Roman writers, and induced their frequent exportation to the capital
of the world. The lamp, with the quaint head of an ivy-wreathed satyr,
Fig. 61, was found in the bed of the Thames, while removing the
foundations of old London Bridge. The protruding mouth of this very
grotesque design holds forth the lighted wick. In nothing more than in
lamps did the quaint imaginings of the Roman artists take the wildest
license.
When the successful incursions of northern barbarism had quenched the
light of classic art, the struggle made by such artists as the Goths had
at command to embody the ideas of power or grace they wished to
indicate, were often as absurd as the work of a modern child. Hence the
grotesque is an inseparable ingredient in their designs, often quite
accidental, and frequently in express contradiction to the intention of
the designer, who imagined in all seriousness many scenes that now only
excite a smile. A strong sense of the ludicrous was, however, felt by
mediæval men, and embodied in the art-works they have left for our
contemplation. With it was combined a relish for satire of a practical
kind. A very good and amusing instance is given in Fig. 62, which is
copied from a carved corner-post of an old house in Lower Brook Street,
Ipswich. It depicts the old popular legend of the Fox and Geese, the
latter attracted toward Reynard by his apparent innocence and sanctity,
as he reads a homily from a lectern, and meeting the reward of their
foolish trustfulness, in the fattest of their number being carried off
by the crafty fox. Both incidents are, as usual with these ancient
designers, represented side by side on different angles of the post.
[Illustration: Fig. 62.]
[Illustration: Fig. 63.]
Our next engraving, Fig. 63, is a very striking specimen of grotesque
design in ironwork of the fourteenth century. It is a door handle from a
church in the High Street of Gloucester, and a more extraordinary
admixture of incongruous details could not very readily be imagined.
The ring hangs from the neck of a monster with a human head having ass’s
ears, the neck is snake-like, bat’s wings are upon the shoulders, the
paws are those of a wolf. To the body is conjoined a grotesque head with
lolling tongue, the head wrapped in a close hood. Grotesque design, for
the reason already stated, frequently appears in the details of church
architecture and furniture during the Middle Ages, particularly from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth century. The capital of a column was the
favourite place for the indulgence of the mason’s taste in caricature;
the _misereres_, or folding seats of the choir, for that of the
wood-carver. It is impossible to conceive anything more droll than many
of the scenes depicted on these ancient benches. Emblematic pictures of
the months, secular games of all kinds, or illustrations of popular
legends, frequently appeared; but as frequently satirical and grotesque
scenes, often bordering on positive indelicacy; and occasionally satires
on the clerical character, which can be only understood when we remember
the strength of the _odium theologicum_, and how completely the
well-established regular clergy disliked the wandering barefooted
friars, who mixed with the people free of all clerical pretence, and
induced unpleasant comparison with the ostentatious pride of the greater
dignitaries. The Franciscans were in this way especially obnoxious, and
between them and the well-established Benedictines an incessant feud
existed. The tone of feeling that pervaded the middle and humbler
classes found a mouth-piece in that curious satire, the Vision of Piers
Ploughman, than which Luther never spoke plainer.
[Illustration: Fig. 64.]
One very prevailing form in early Gothic design was that of the mythic
dragon, whose winged body and convoluted tail were easily and happily
adapted to mix with the foliage or other decorative enrichments these
artists chose to adopt. Hence we find no creature more common in early
art than this purely fanciful one, rendered still more fanciful by
grotesque combination. The bosses from which spring the vaulted ribs of
Wells Cathedral furnish us with the instance engraved in Fig. 64; here
two dragons twine round a bunch of foliage, biting each other’s tails.
[Illustration: Fig. 65.]
Domestic utensils were often made to represent living things; the
tendency to convert a globular vase or jug into a huge head or a fat
figure, has been common to all people in all ages. The highly civilised
Greeks indulged the whim, and our own potters continue it. In the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, vessels for liquids were often
constructed of bronze, taking the form of lions, or mounted knights on
horseback, of which specimens may be seen in our British Museum. The
manufacturers of earthenware imitated these at a cheaper rate, and we
engrave (Fig. 65) one example of their skill, the original being rudely
coloured with a blue and yellow glaze on the surface of the brown clay
which forms the body.
The door-knocker (Fig. 66), whimsically constructed in form of a human
leg, the heel hitting against the door, is also a work of the fourteenth
century; it is affixed to a house in the Rue des Conseils, at Auxerre,
and is very characteristic in execution.
[Illustration: Fig. 66.]
Our selection (Fig. 67) comprises a most rare domestic antiquity, to
which a date cannot so readily be assigned, but which cannot be more
modern than the sixteenth century, and may be older. It is a
toasting-fork in the form of a dog, to whose breast a ring is attached
for holding a plate. It is entirely constructed of wrought-iron, the
body cut from a flat sheet of metal. It was found in clearing away the
foundations of one of the oldest houses in Westminster. The tail of the
dog forms a convenient handle; to the front foot a cross bar is appended
to preserve its due equilibrium.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.]
Grotesque design was adopted by the artists who decorated books from the
very earliest time. The margins of ancient manuscripts are often
enriched with whimsical compositions, as well as with flowing designs of
much grace and beauty. Occasionally the two styles are very happily
combined, and a humorous adjunct gives piquancy to a scholastic
composition. The early printed books often adopted a similar style in
art, and we give two curious specimens. The letter F, whimsically
composed of two figures of minstrels (Fig. 68), one playing the trumpet
and the other the tabor, is copied from an alphabet, entirely composed
in this manner, and now preserved in the British Museum; it bears no
date, but the late Mr. William Young Ottley, keeper of the prints there,
was of opinion that it was executed about the middle of the fifteenth
century. This quaint alphabet has been repeated by the artists of each
succeeding generation, with variations to adapt the letters to the
costume or habit of each era; but in this unique series we seem to see
the origin of them all.
[Illustration: Fig. 68.]
One of the most singular books ever issued from the press, was published
about the same period; it is known as the _Ars Memorandi_.[59-*] As its
title imports, it was intended to assist the memory in retaining the
contents of the Gospels in the New Testament. This is done by making the
body of the design of the emblematic figure indicative of each, either
the eagle, angel, ox, or lion; in combination with this figure are many
small groups, symbolic of the contents of the various chapters. The
copy we give (Fig. 69), from the second print devoted to St. Luke’s
Gospel, will make the plan of this singular picture-book clearer. The
winged bull is spread out as a base to the group of minor emblems, upon
its head rests a funeral bier, and in front of it a pot of ointment; the
numeral 7 alludes to the chapter, the principal contents being thus
called to memory. The bier alludes to the Saviour’s miraculous
restoration to life of the widow’s son, whom He met carried out on a
bier as He entered the city of Nain; the ointment pot alludes to the
anointing of His feet by Mary Magdalene. The bag upon which the figure 8
is placed, indicates the fable of the sower, it is the seed-bag of the
husbandman; the boat alludes to the passage of the Lake when the Saviour
quelled the storm. The singular group of emblems in the centre of the
figure indicates--the power given to the disciples by the key; the
Saviour in his transfiguration, by the sun; and the miraculous
multiplication of the five loaves; as narrated in the 9th chapter of St.
Luke. The following chapter has its chief contents noted by the scroll
indicative of the law; the sword which wounded the traveller from
Jerusalem whom the good Samaritan aided; and the figure of Mary
commended by Jesus. No. 11 is typical of the casting out a devil whose
back is depicted broken: and No. 12, of the teaching of that chapter in
the Gospel; for here the heart is set upon a treasure-chest, an act we
are especially taught to avoid.
[Illustration: Fig. 69.]
These great treasure-chests were important pieces of furniture in
ancient houses, and were generally placed at the foot of the master’s
bed for the greater safety; in them were packed the chief valuables he
possessed, particularly the household plate. At a time when banking was
unknown, property was converted into plate, as a most convenient mode of
retaining it. Decorative plate increased the public state of its owner,
was a portable thing, and could be easily hidden in time of danger, or
pledged in time of want. Hence the nobility and gentry of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries gave abundant employment to the goldsmith.
Cellini, in his Memoirs, has noted many fine pieces of ornamental plate
he was called upon to design and execute; and one of the finest still
exists in the _Kunst-Kammer_, at Vienna--the golden salt-cellar he made
for Francis I., of France. The “salt” was an important piece of plate
on all tables at this period, and to be placed above or below it,
indicated the rank, or honour, done to any seated at the banquet. The
large engraving (Fig. 70) delineates a very remarkable salt-cellar,
being part of the collection of antique plate formed by the late Lord
Londesborough. This curious example of the quaint designs of the old
metal-workers, is considered to have been the work of one of the famous
Augsburg goldsmiths at the latter part of the sixteenth century. It is a
combination of metals, jewels, and rare shells in a singularly grotesque
general design. The salt was placed in the large shell of the then rare
_pecten_ of the South Seas, which is edged with a silver-gilt rim chased
in floriated ornament, and further enriched by garnets; to it is affixed
the half-length figure of a lady, whose bosom is formed of the larger
_orange-coloured pecten_, upon which a garnet is affixed to represent a
brooch; a crystal forms the caul of the head-dress, another is placed
below the waist. The large shell is supported by the tail of the whale
on one side, and on the other by the serpent which twists around it; in
this reptile’s head a turquoise is set, the eyes are formed of garnet,
and the tongue of red onyx. The whole is of silver-gilt, and within the
mouth is a small figure of Jonah, whose adventure is thus strangely
mixed with the general design. The sea is quaintly indicated by the
circular base, chased with figures of sea-monsters disporting in the
waves. It would not be easy to select a more characteristic specimen of
antique table-plate. The inventories of similar articles once possessed
by the French king, Charles V., and his brother, the Duke of Anjou, King
of Naples and Provence (preserved in the Royal Library, Paris), give
descriptive details of similar quaint pieces of art-manufacture, in
which the most grotesque and heterogeneous features are combined, and
the work enriched by precious stones and enamels. Jules Labarte
observes, “the artists of that period indulged in strange flights of
fancy in designing plate for the table, they especially delighted in
grotesque subjects: a ewer or a cup may often be seen in the shape of a
man, animal, or flower, while a monstrous combination of several human
figures serves to form the design of a vase.”
[Illustration: Fig. 70.]
But quaint and fanciful as were the works of the Parisian goldsmiths,
they were outdone by the grotesque designs of the German artificers.
They invented drinking-cups of the strangest form, the whole animal
kingdom, fabulous and real, birds, and sea-monsters, were constructed to
hold liquids. A table laid out with an abundance of this
strangely-designed plate, must have had a ludicrous effect. Many of
their works, though costly in character, refined in execution, and
thoroughly artistic in detail, are absolute caricatures. There is one in
Lord Londesborough’s collection, and another in that of Baron
Rothschild, made in the form of a bagpipe; the bag holds wine, and is
supported on human feet; arms emerge from the sides and play on the
chanter, which is elongated from the nose of a grotesque face, the hair
a mass of foliage. Dozens of similar examples might be cited, of the
most extraordinary invention, which the metal-workers of the seventeenth
century particularly gave their imaginations licence to construct.
Indeed, the German artists of that period seem to have had a spice of
lunacy in their compositions, and the works of Breughel were rivalled
and outdone by many others whose fancies were of most unearthly type.
Salvator Rosa in Italy, and Callot in France, occasionally depicted
what their grotesque and mystic imaginings suggested, and Teniers gave
the world witch-pictures; but for the wild and wondrous, Germany has
always carried the palm from the rest of the world in art as in
literature.
[Illustration: Fig. 71.]
[Illustration: Fig. 72.]
We engrave a fine example of a vase handle (Fig. 71), apparently the
work of an Italian goldsmith at the early part of the seventeenth
century. The bold freedom of the design is utilised here by the upheaved
figure grasped by the monster, and which gives hold and strength to the
handle; the flowing character throughout the composition accords well
with the general curve of the vase to which it is affixed. There is a
prevailing elegance in the Italian grotesque design which is not seen in
that of other nations. The knife handle by Francisco Salviati, which we
have also selected for engraving (Fig. 72), is a favourable example of
this feeling; nothing can be more _outré_ than the figure of the monster
which crowns the design; yet for the purpose of utility, as a firm hold
to the handle, it is unobjectionable; while the graceful convolutions of
the neck, and the flow of line in the figure, combined with this
monster, give a certain quaint grace to the design, which is further
relieved by enriched foliage.
[Illustration: Fig. 73.]
With one specimen of the later work of the silversmith, we take our
leave of grotesque design as applied to art-manufacture; but that work
is as whimsical as any we have hitherto seen. It is a pair of silver
sugar-tongs (Fig. 73), evidently a work of the conclusion of the
seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. It is composed of
the figure of Harlequin, who upholds two coiled serpents, forming
handles; the body moves on a central pivot, fastened at the girdle, and
the right arm and left leg move with the front, as do the others with
the back of the body, which is formed by a double plate of silver, the
junctures being ingeniously hidden by the chequers of the dress.
[Illustration: Fig. 74.]
We have already had occasion to allude to the adoption of grotesque
design in book illustrations, it is often seen in manuscripts, and
abounds in early printed works. When wood engraving was extensively
applied to the enrichment of the books which issued in abundance from
the presses of Germany and France, the head and tail-pieces of chapters
gave great scope to the fancies of the artists of Frankfort and Lyons.
The latter city became remarkable for the production of elegantly
illustrated volumes, which have never been surpassed. Our concluding
cuts represent one of these tail-pieces (Fig. 74), in which a fanciful
mask combines with scroll-work; and a head-piece (Fig. 75), (one half
only being given), where the grotesque element pervades the entire
composition to an unusual extent, without an offensive feature. Yet it
would not be easy to bring together a greater variety of heterogeneous
admixtures than it embraces. Fish, beasts, insects, and foliage, combine
with the human form to complete its _ensemble_. The least natural of the
group is the floriated fish, whose general form has evidently been based
on that of the dolphin. When Hogarth ridiculed the taste for _virtu_,
which the fashionable people of his own era carried to a childish
extent, and displayed its follies in his picture of “Taste in high
life,” and in the furniture of his scenes of the “Marriage-à-la-mode,”
he exhibited a somewhat similar absurdity in porcelain ornament. In the
second scene of the “Marriage” is an amusing example of false
combination, in which a fat Chinese is embowered in foliage, above whom
floats in air a brace of fish, which emerge from the leaves, and seem to
be diving at the lighted candles. Hogarth’s strong sense of the
ludicrous was always pertinently displayed in such good-humoured satire.
[Illustration: Fig. 75.]
The pottery manufacturers were always clever at the construction of
grotesques. We have noted their past ability, and our readers may note
their present talent in many London shops. The French fabricants furnish
us with the most remarkable modern works, and very many of the smaller
articles for the toilette, or for children’s use, are designed with a
strong feeling for the grotesque. Little figures of Chinese, rich in
colour, twist about in quaint attitudes, to do duty as tray-holders or
match-boxes. Lizards make good paper-weights, and wide-mouthed frogs are
converted into small jugs with perfect ease. There is evidently a
peculiar charm possessed by the grotesque, which appeals to, and is
gladly accepted by, our volatile neighbours. We are ashamed to laugh at
a child-like absurdity, and take it to our hearts with the thorough
delight which they do not scruple to display. In this we more resemble
the Germans, and, like them, we have a sombre element even in our
amusements.
This subject, though entering so largely into the decorative designs of
all countries and every age, has never been treated with any attention
as a branch of fine art. It is by no means intended here to direct study
to the reproduction of anything so false as the grotesque; but as it has
existed, and does still exist, its presence cannot be ignored, and will
be recognised constantly by all who study art.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[49-*] “History of Ancient Egyptians.”
[59-*] “Ars Memorandi notabilis per Figuras Evangelistarum,” etc.
FACTS ABOUT FINGER-RINGS.
FACTS ABOUT FINGER-RINGS.
CHAPTER I.
ANTIQUE RINGS.
Archæology, which was formerly considered by the majority of persons to
be a dull and uninteresting study, abounding with dry details of small
general interest, which, when not pompously pretentious, were, in the
other extreme, of trifling insignificance, has, by a better acquaintance
with its true position as the handmaid of history, become so popular
that most English counties have societies especially devoted to its
district claims, and our large cities have their archæological
institutes also. This is due to the good sense which has divested the
study of its drier details, or has had the tact to hide them beneath
agreeable information. It is not too much to assert that archæology in
all its branches may be made pleasurable, abounding as it does in
curious and amusing details, sometimes humorously contrasting with our
modern manners.
In taking up one of these branches--the history of finger-rings--we
shall briefly show the large amount of anecdote and curious collateral
information it abounds in. Our illustrations depict the great variety of
design and ornamental detail embraced by so simple a thing as a hoop
for the finger. It would be easy to multiply the literary and the
artistic branch of this subject until a volume of no small bulk resulted
from the labour. Volumes have been devoted to the history of
rings--Gorlæus among the older, and Edwards,[74-*] of New York, among
the modern authors. The ancients had their _Dactyliotheca_, or
collection of rings; but they were luxurious varieties of rings for
wear. The modern collections are historic, illustrative of past tastes
and manners. Of these the best have been formed by the late Lord
Londesborough (whose collection was remarkable for its beauty and
value), and Edmund Waterton, Esq., F.S.A., who still lives to possess
the best chronological series of rings ever brought together. We have
had the advantage of the fullest access to each collection.
It is in the oldest of histories, the books of Moses, that we find the
earliest records of the use of the finger-ring. It originally appears to
have been a signet, used as we now use a written autograph; and it is
not a little curious that the unchanged habit of Eastern life renders
the custom as common now as it was three thousand years ago. When Tamar
desired some certain token by which she should again recognise Judah,
she made her first request for his signet, and when the time of
recognition arrived, it was duly and undoubtingly acknowledged by
all.[74-†] Fig. 76 exhibits the usual form assumed by these signets.
It has a somewhat clumsy movable handle, attached to a cross-bar passing
through a cube, engraved on each of its facets with symbolical devices.
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson[75-*] speaks of it as one of the largest and
most valuable he has seen, containing twenty pounds’ worth of gold. “It
consisted of a massive ring, half an inch in its largest diameter,
bearing an oblong plinth, on which the devices were engraved, one inch
long, six-tenths in its greatest and four-tenths in its smallest
breadth. On one face was the name of a king, the successor of Amunoph
III., who lived about B.C. 1400; on the other a lion, with the legend
‘lord of strength,’ referring to the monarch: on one side a scorpion,
and on the other a crocodile.” Judah’s signet was, of course, formed of
less valuable material, and had probably a single device only.
[Illustration: Fig. 76.]
[Illustration: Fig. 77.]
The lighter kind of hooped signet, as generally worn at a somewhat more
recent era in Egypt, is shown in Fig. 77. The gold loop passes through a
small figure of the sacred beetle, the flat under side being engraved
with the device of a crab. It is cut in carnelian, and once formed part
of the collection of Egyptian antiquities gathered by our consul at
Cairo--Henry Salt, the friend of Burckhardt and Belzoni, who first
employed the latter in Egyptian researches, and to whom our national
museum owes many of its chief Egyptian treasures.
From a passage in Jeremiah (xxii. 24) it appears to have been customary
for the Jewish nation to wear the signet-ring on the right hand. The
words of the Lord are uttered against Zedekiah--“though Coniah, the son
of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, were the signet on my right hand, yet would
I pluck thee thence.”
The transition from such signets to the solid finger-ring was natural
and easy. The biblical record treats them as contemporaneous even at
that early era. Thus the story of Judah and Tamar is immediately
followed by that of Joseph, when we are told “Pharaoh took off the ring
from his hand and put it upon Joseph’s hand,” when he invested him with
authority as a ruler in Egypt. Dr. Abbott, of Cairo, obtained a most
curious and valuable ring, inscribed with a royal name. It is now
preserved, with his other Egyptian antiquities, at New York, and is thus
described in his catalogue:--“This remarkable piece of antiquity is in
the highest state of preservation, and was found at Ghizeh, in a tomb
near that excavation of Colonel Vyse’s called ‘Campbell’s Tomb.’ It is
of fine gold, and weighs nearly three sovereigns. The style of the
hieroglyphics is in perfect accordance with those in the tombs about the
Great Pyramid; and the hieroglyphics within the oval make the name of
that Pharaoh (Cheops) of whom the pyramid was the tomb.” Fig. 78
represents this ring, and beside it (Fig. 79) is placed the hieroglyphic
inscription upon the face of the ring, which is cut with the most minute
accuracy and beauty.
[Illustration: Fig. 78.]
[Illustration: Fig. 79.]
[Illustration: Fig. 80.]
[Illustration: Fig. 81.]
Rings of inferior metal, bearing royal names, were worn, probably, by
officials of the king’s household. Henry Salt had one such in his
collection, which was afterwards in the remarkable collection of rings
formed by the late Lord Londesborough. It is represented in Fig. 80, and
is entirely of bronze. The name of Amunoph III. is engraved on the oval
face of the ring, exactly as it appears on the tablet of Abydus in the
British Museum. Amunoph (who reigned, according to Wilkinson, B.C.
1403-1367) is the same monarch known to the Greeks as Memnon; and the
colossal “head of Memnon,” placed in the British Museum through the
agency of Mr. Salt, has a similar group of hieroglyphics sculptured on
its shoulder. There was another kind of official ring, which we can
recognise from the description of Pliny, and of which we give an
engraving (Fig. 81) from the original in the author’s possession. It is
of bronze, and has engraved upon its face the figure of the scarabæus;
such rings were worn by the Egyptian soldiers.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.]
The lower classes, who could not afford rings of precious metals, but,
like their modern descendants, coveted the adornment, purchased those
made of ivory or porcelain. In the latter material they abounded, and
are found in Egyptian sepulchres in large quantities; they are very
neatly moulded, and the devices on their faces, whether depicting gods,
emblems, or hieroglyphics, are generally well and clearly rendered.
This fondness for loading the fingers with an abundance of rings is well
displayed on the crossed hands of a figure of a woman (Fig. 82) upon a
mummy case in the British Museum. Here the thumbs as well as the fingers
are encircled by them. The left hand is most loaded; upon the thumb is a
signet with hieroglyphics on its surface; three rings on the forefinger;
two on the second, one formed like a snail-shell; the same number on
the next, and one on the little finger. The right hand carries only a
thumb-ring, and two upon the third finger. These hands are cut in wood,
and the fingers are partially broken.
Wilkinson observes--“The left was considered the hand peculiarly
privileged to bear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third
finger was decorated with a greater number than any other, and was
considered by them, as by us, _par excellence_, the ring-finger; though
there is no evidence of its having been so honoured at the marriage
ceremony.”
Herodotus narrates a curious antique legend he obtained in Egypt,
concerning the ring of Polycrates. It is remarkable as having spread
into the legendary history of all countries, being still credited by the
commonality. We shall have hereafter to note its existence as an old
London tradition; but the version of the Greek historian is briefly
thus:--Amasis, King of Egypt, conceived an extraordinary friendship for
the Greek, Polycrates, and, observing that the latter was attended by
unusual success in all his adventures, reflected that such unvarying
felicity seldom lasted through life, and the end of such a career was
often calamitous. He therefore advised him to propitiate future fortune
by seeking some object whose loss would produce most regret, and
voluntarily casting it away from him where it could never be recovered.
Polycrates attached most value to a signet-ring he constantly wore; it
was of gold, set with an emerald cut by Theodorus of Samos, a famed
engraver of gems. He went out in a galley far on to the open sea, and
then cast his precious ring into its waters, returning in an excess of
grief. Some six days afterwards a fisherman came to his gate, bearing a
fish so fine and large he deemed it to be only fitted for the table of
Polycrates. The King of Samos accepted the gift, the fish was sent to
the royal kitchen, and on opening it a valuable ring was found in its
stomach. It was at once taken to Polycrates, who immediately recognised
his abandoned treasure, which he now valued the more as it seemed to be
returned by divine interposition.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.]
[Illustration: Fig. 84.]
In the comparatively modern era of Roman rule in Egypt, rings of more
fanciful construction were occasionally worn. In the British Museum is a
remarkable one (Fig. 83), having the convolutions of a serpent, the head
of Serapis at one extremity and of Isis at the other; by this
arrangement one or other of them would always be correctly posited; it
has also the further advantage of being flexible, owing to the great
sweep of its curve.
The ancient Assyrians, though remarkable for that love of jewellery
which has ever been the characteristic of the Eastern nations, appear to
have worn no finger-rings. Yet many of their bracelets are admirably
designed for the purpose if produced on a limited scale; and they were
worn by men as well as by women. Bonomi, in his “History of Nineveh and
its Palaces,” observes, “that not a single case occurs, amidst all this
display of personal jewellery, of a finger-ring; the entire absence of
this ornament in sculpture, wherein details of this nature are so
elaborately and carefully attended to, leads to the conclusion that the
finger-ring was an ornament then unknown.”
[Illustration: Fig. 85.]
[Illustration: Fig. 86.]
Among the earliest traces of western civilisation the finger-ring
appears. Fig. 84 is an Etruscan ring of gold, now in the British Museum;
upon the face are chimeræ opposing each other. The style and treatment
of this subject partake largely of the ancient character of Eastern art,
and, like that, is very decisive and conventional.
The Greeks and Romans literally revelled in rings of all styles and
sizes. Nothing can be more beautiful in design and exquisite in finish
than Greek jewellery, and the custom of decorating their dead with the
most valued of these ornaments has furnished modern museums with an
abundance of fine specimens. Figs. 85 and 86 are copied from originals
found in the more modern Etruscan sepulchres, and are probably
contemporary with the earliest days of the Roman empire. Fig. 85 is
admirably adapted to the finger; being made of the purest gold, it is
naturally slightly elastic; but the hoop is not perfected, each
extremity ending in a broad leaf-shaped ornament, most delicately banded
with threads of beaded and twisted wire, acting as a brace upon the
finger. Fig. 86 is equally meritorious; the solid half-ring is completed
by a small golden chain attached to it by a loop passing over studs; the
links of this chain are perfectly flexible, and of extreme delicacy;
they resemble the modern guard-chain, or to speak more properly, the
modern chain imitates the ancient one; and we shall meet in the course
of our researches with very many other instances of the oft-repeated
fact, that “there is nothing new under the sun.”
This ring mania was not content with considering the ring as an
ornament, or even as a talisman; a new science was revealed, the
_Dactyliomancia_, so named from two Greek words, signifying _ring_ and
_divination_. The performance of its mysteries was in itself so simple,
that it was deemed expedient to add certain formulæ, in order to make
them more expressive. A ring was held, suspended by a fine thread, over
a round table, on the edge of which were placed counters engraved with
the letters of the alphabet. The thread was shaken until the ring,
touching the letters, had united as many as formed an answer to a
question previously put. This operation was preceded and accompanied by
certain ceremonies. The ring was consecrated with divers mysterious
forms. The person who held it was arrayed in linen only; a circle was
shaved round his head, and in his hand he held a branch of vervain.
Before commencing the gods were appeased by prayer.[82-*] This practice
long prevailed, and is mentioned by Gibbon as having given rise to the
persecutions for the crime of magic, in the reign of the Emperor Valens,
at Antioch.[83-*]
[Illustration: Fig. 87.]
[Illustration: Fig. 88.]
The simplest and most useful form of ring, and that, by consequence,
adopted by the people of all early nations, was the plain elastic hoop,
as shown in Fig. 87. Cheap in construction and convenient in wear, it
may be safely said to have been generally patronised from the most
ancient to the most modern times. Fig. 88 gives us the old form of a
ring made in the shape of a coiled serpent, equally ancient, equally
far-spread in the old world, and which has had a very large sale among
ourselves revived as a “decided novelty.” In fact it has been the most
successful design our ring-makers have produced of late years. Yet this
antique ring may add another “new idea” to the modern designer. It is
“made on the principle of some of our steel rings which we use to hold
household keys, widening their circle by pressure. In this finger-ring
the part in the mouth is inserted loose, so as to draw out and increase
to the size of the circle needed.”[83-†]
[Illustration: Fig. 89.]
[Illustration: Fig. 90.]
Though a great variety of form and detail was adopted by Greek and Roman
goldsmiths for the rings they so largely manufactured, the most general
and lasting resembled Fig. 89, a Roman ring, probably of the time of
Hadrian, which is said to have been found in the Roman camp at
Silchester, Berkshire. The gold of the ring is massive at the face,
making a strong setting for the carnelian, which is engraved with the
figure of a female bearing corn and fruit. By far the greater majority
of Roman rings exhumed at home and abroad are of this fashion, which
recommends itself by a dignified simplicity, telling, by quantity and
quality of metal and stone, its true value, without any obtrusive aid.
Sometimes a single ring was constructed to appear like a group of two or
three upon the finger. Mr. Edwards has furnished us with the example,
Fig. 90. “It has the appearance of three rings united, widened in the
front and tapering within the hand. Upon the wide part of each are two
letters, the whole forming ZHCAIC, ‘Mayest thou live.’ The Romans often
preferred the Greek language in their most familiar customs.”
Among the beautiful objects of antique art collected by B. Hertz, Esq.,
and sold by auction in 1859, by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, were many
antique rings inscribed with sentences and mottoes of a remarkable kind.
Those bearing Greek inscriptions were the wordiest; such as--“I love
not lest I go astray; but I observe well, and I laugh.”--“They say what
they will; let them say, I care not.” Many were evidently memorials of
friendship; one represented a hand pulling the lobe of an ear, with the
word “Remember;” another, with a similar device, with the motto “Remind
me of the noble character.” Others were inscribed--EYTYXI--“Good luck to
you,” and “I bring luck to him who wears this ring.” Among the Latin
inscriptions were simple good wishes expressed in the words “Vivas” and
“Bene;” or sentiments expressed in few words, such as--“Love me, I will
love thee;” “Come, I will not;” “Be greeted, Fabiana.” Many were simply
inscribed with the names of the persons to whom they were presented,
such as VLP. PRISCELLÆ (“Ulpia Priscilla”); others with the names of the
owners, as Valeria Cleopatra and Hermadion Cæsaris. A massive silver
ring inscribed with the name “Sabbina” is engraved (Fig. 91) from the
original in the Londesborough collection.
[Illustration: Fig. 91.]
[Illustration: Fig. 92.]
We place beside it a ring with a very different device, but one that
cannot fail to be looked on with singular interest. It is marked with
the _Labarum_, the oldest sacred monogram of Christianity, which
Constantine believed he saw in a vision, and placed upon his victorious
standard and his coins, with the motto--“In hoc signo vinces!” This ring
came from the Roman sepulchre of an early Christian, and the hand for
which it was originally fashioned may have aided in the conquering war
of the first Christian emperor; or may have been convulsed in an
agonising death, “thrown to the beasts” of the circus, but reposing
after death with the first martyrs to the faith.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.]
Clement of Alexandria suggests to the Christians of his era, that they
should have engraved devices of symbolic meaning allusive to their
faith, in place of the heathen deities and other subjects cut by Roman
lapidaries; such as a dove, which symbolises life eternal and the Holy
Spirit; a palm-branch, peace; an anchor, hope; a ship in full sail, the
church; and others of similar import.
Gorius has preserved a representation of a gold ring (Fig. 93) which he
believes to have been presented by a Roman lady to the victorious
charioteer in the horse-races; it is of peculiar form, but one that was
a favourite with Roman wearers. The bust of the donor appears on the
summit of the ring, and on each side are the heads of reined horses, as
shown in our cut. Her name is engraved on the lower part of the hoop,
and on each side AMOROSPIS. The latter properly being HOSPES, having the
aspirate omitted and an I for an E, induces Gorius to consider it a late
work of the Roman era.
[Illustration: Fig. 94.]
We have already spoken of the ring-hand and the ring-finger, but have
not noted the origin of the custom of placing the wedding ring on that
finger. It resulted from an inaccurate belief that a nerve went from
thence to the heart. That the ancients were indiscriminate in the use of
their fingers as recipients for rings we have already shown; Mr.
Waterton has placed in his curious _Dactyliotheca_ the forefinger from a
bronze statue of late Roman workmanship, wearing a large ring upon the
second joint. In Germany it is still customary to wear the ring in this
fashion, a custom they evidently borrowed from their Roman subjugators,
and have retained through every century of change since then.
As the luxury of Rome increased, the wearing of rings increased also,
and the emperors relaxed the law of restraint. Thus Tiberias, in A.D.
22, gave permission for gold rings to be worn by all persons whose
fathers and grandfathers possessed property to the value of 200,000
sesterciæ. The Emperors Severus and Aurelian ultimately gave the right
of wearing gold rings to all soldiers of the empire; and the Emperor
Justinian at length gave a similar right to all who had legal claims to
Roman citizenship. Distinction once broken through, and wealth
increasing, ring-wearing became general. Seneca, describing the luxury
and ostentation of his time, says, “We adorn our fingers with rings, and
a jewel is displayed on every joint.” The ridiculous excess to which the
custom was carried may be understood from Martial’s description of
Charinus, who wore as many as sixty rings on his hands at one time, and
so fond was he of his jewellery that he kept them upon his fingers when
in bed. They were decorated with a vast variety of subjects, originally
cut in the metal of which the ring was made, whether gold, silver, or
brass; ultimately the devices were cut upon stones and gems,
occasionally representing the tutelar deity of the wearer. Thus Julius
Cæsar wore one with Venus Victrix upon it, and his partisans did the
same. Pompey’s ring was engraved with three trophies, indicating his
victories in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Many used merely fanciful or
emblematic devices; thus Mæcenas had a frog upon his ring. Others wore
the portraits of their ancestors or friends. Publius Lentulus had that
of his grandfather. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, younger son of the great
Africanus, wore the portrait of his father; but, as he was a degenerate
son of an illustrious sire, the people gave expression to their disgust
at his conduct by depriving him of his ring, saying he was unworthy to
wear the portrait of so great a man.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.]
This ring-wearing became one of the troubles of the wealthy, and as the
Sybarite complained of the folded rose-leaf inconveniencing his bed, the
rich Roman was fatigued with his rings. Hence came the custom of wearing
light or heavy rings, or as they termed them, summer or winter rings,
according to the season. That there really was some reason in the
complaint, will be granted by the reader who looks on Fig. 95, copied
from Montfaucon.[89-*] It is a thumb-ring of unusual magnitude, and of
costly material; it has upon it a bust in high relief of the Empress
Plotina, the consort of Trajan; she wears the imperial diadem, which is
here composed of precious stones cut into facets. This bust would of
course come outside the hand, the narrower part of the wreathed ring
passing between the thumb and first finger. The gorgeous inconvenience
of the whole thing is at once apparent. It probably decorated the hand
of some member of the imperial family.
[Illustration: Fig. 96.]
[Illustration: Fig. 97.]
The enormous sums expended by the wealthy on rings may be best
understood by an allusion to the recorded value of two belonging to
empresses of Rome. Thus, the ring of Faustina, we are told, cost
£40,000, and that of Domitia £60,000, reckoning the Roman sestertia at
its modern value.
Sometimes the decoration of a ring was not confined to a single gem,
though such rings were comparatively rare. Valerian speaks of the
_annulus bigemmis_, and Gorleus furnishes us with the specimen engraved
in Fig. 96; the larger gem has cut upon it a figure of Mars, holding
spear and helmet, but wearing only the chlamys; the smaller gem is
incised with a dove and myrtle branch. Beside it are placed two examples
of the emblematic devices and inscriptions adopted for classic rings,
when used as memorial gifts. The first is inscribed, “You have a love
pledge;” the second, “Proteros (to) Ugiæ,” between conjoined hands--a
type of concord still familiar to us.
Though the ancients seem scarcely to have thought of decorating the
circlet of the ring, they occasionally varied its form, producing
novelty at the expense of convenience. Fig. 98 is a whimsical example;
it may, however, have been principally used as a signet. The same may be
said of Fig. 99, which has a very broad face, set with an incised stone
bearing a figure of Hygeia.
[Illustration: Fig. 98.]
[Illustration: Fig. 99.]
The ancients tell us of charmed rings; such was the ring of Gyges, which
was reported to have rendered him invisible when he turned the stone
inwardly, and closed it in his palm. Execetus, tyrant of the Phocians,
carried two rings, which he was accustomed to strike together, to divine
by the sound emitted what he had to do, or what was to happen to him.
The most curious adaptation of the finger-ring to a double use was made
by the Romans. It was a combination of a ring and a key, as represented
in Figs. 100 and 101, from originals engraved by Montfaucon in his great
work on Roman antiquities. He has published many varieties, for they are
very commonly discovered in all places where the Romans located
themselves. Many have been found in London, York, Lincoln, and other old
cities, as well as in the neighbourhood of Roman camps. The use of these
rings is apparent: they opened the small cabinets or boxes in which the
most precious articles were preserved, and they were less likely to be
lost, mislaid, or improperly used by others, when thus worn night and
day on the finger.
[Illustration: Fig. 100.]
[Illustration: Fig. 101.]
It is recorded of the poisoning Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), that he
caused a somewhat similar key to be used in opening a cabinet; but the
Pope’s key was poisoned in the handle, and provided with a small sharp
pin, which gave a slight puncture sufficient to allow the poison to pass
below the skin. When the Holy Father wished to rid himself of an
objectionable friend, he would request him to unlock his cabinet; as the
lock turned rather stiffly, a little pressure was necessary on the
key-handle, sufficient to give the trifling wound that ultimately proved
mortal. Poisoned rings were known to the ancients; when Hannibal, the
Carthaginian general, was overcome by Scipio Africanus, it is recorded
that he fled to Bithynia, and ended his life by poison, which for that
purpose he had reserved in a ring.
[Illustration: Fig. 102.]
[Illustration: Fig. 103.]
Rings formed of bone, amber, and glass, were provided for the poorer
classes, as was the case in ancient Egypt. They were also used as
mortuary rings, and are found on the hands of the dead in Italian
sepulchres. The Waterton collection supplies us with two specimens. Fig.
102 is of amber, cut to appear as if set with a stone. Fig. 103 is of
glass, also made as if set with a jewel. The body of this ring is dark
brown with bands of white crossing it; the jewel is yellow.
[Illustration: Fig. 104.]
[Illustration: Fig. 105.]
In the later days of the Roman empire the simplicity and purity in
decorative design that the Romans obtained from the Greeks, gave way to
the ostentatious love of gaudy decoration taught at Byzantium. Jewellery
became complicated in design; enrichment was considered before elegance.
The old simple form of finger-ring varied much. Fig. 104 is given by
Montfaucon. Fig. 105 is in the Londesborough collection, and was found
upon the hand of a lady’s skeleton, buried with her child in a
sarcophagus discovered in 1846, in a field near Amiens, called “Le Camp
de Cæsar;” on two of her fingers were rings, one of which was set with
ten round pearls, the other (here engraved) is of gold, in which is set
a red carnelian, engraved with a rude representation of Jupiter riding
on the goat Amalthea. The child also wore a ring with an engraved stone.
The whole of the decorations for the person found in this tomb proclaim
themselves late Roman work, probably of the time of Diocletian.
[Illustration: Fig. 106.]
[Illustration: Fig. 107.]
In 1841 a curious discovery was made at Lyons of the jewel case of a
Roman lady, containing a complete _trousseau_, including the rings here
engraved. Fig. 106 is of gold; the hoop is slightly ovular, and curves
upward to a double leaf, supporting three cup-shaped settings, one still
retaining its stone, an African emerald. Fig. 107 is also remarkable for
its general form, and still more so for its inscription, VENERI ET
TVTELE VOTVM, explained by M. Comarmond as a dedication to Venus and the
local Tutela, the guardian of the navigators of the Rhine; hence he
infers these jewels to have belonged to the wife of one of these rich
traders in the reign of Severus.
Carrying back our researches to the pre-historic era of our own island,
and searching in the tumuli of the early British chieftain and his
family, we shall discover the utmost simplicity of adornment; not
probably the result of indifference to personal decoration, but simply
to the rudeness of his position. The wild Gaelic hunter, located in the
gloomy fastnesses of wood and morass, had little or no communication
with the southern sea-margin of our isle: and when we find the south
Cymry of Britain much advanced in civilisation, owing to connection with
Belgic Gaul, and Phœnician colonists of Spain, and the Greek colonists
of the Mediterranean, we find the tribes inhabiting the midland and
northern counties still barbaric, and little advanced in the arts that
make life pleasant. Such decoration as they adopted seems to have
originated in the basket-weaving, for which the British Islands were
famous even at Rome, where noble dames coveted these works from the
far-off and mysterious _Cassiteridæ_. Plaited or interlaced-work,
resembling the convolutions of wicker and rush, was imitated in threads
of metal; thus circlets for the neck, bracelets for the arms, or rings
for the fingers, were but twisted strands of gold.
The simplest form of finger-ring worn by these Gaelic ancestors
consisted of a band of metal, merely twisted round to embrace the
finger, and open at either end. Fig. 108 shows one of these rings, found
in excavating at Harnham Hill, near Salisbury, a locality celebrated
from the very earliest recorded time as the true centre of ancient
Britain. This ring was found on the middle finger of the right hand of a
person of advanced age. Sometimes several rings were found on one hand.
“Among the bones of the fingers of the left hand of an adult skeleton
was found a silver ring of solid form, another of spiral form, and a
plain gold ring.”[96-*] Mr. Akerman, who superintended these researches,
says, “Similar rings have been found at Little Wilbraham, at Linton
Heath, at Fairford, and other localities. They are for the most part of
an uniform construction, being so contrived that they could be expanded
or contracted, and adapted to the size of the finger of the
wearer.”[96-†]
[Illustration: Fig. 108.]
[Illustration: Fig. 109.]
The prevailing form of the old Celtic finger-ring is shown in Fig. 109.
It is formed of thick twisted wires of pure gold. This fashion seems to
have been in most favour with all the early Celtic tribes, such rings
being found in the grave-mounds of Gaul, Germany, Belgium, Denmark,
Ireland, and Scotland. A discovery of many similar rings was made in one
of the Western Islands of Scotland; they were formed of from three to
eight wires each, elaborately and beautifully enwreathed.
[Illustration: Fig. 110.]
[Illustration: Fig. 111.]
The south Saxons retained to the last the simple form of wire-ring,
which originated, as we have already shown, with the most ancient
people. Its comparative cheapness and ease of construction were no doubt
its great recommendations. Similar rings are still made for the poorer
classes in the East: the author has seen such worn in modern Egypt.
Specimens have been obtained in Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds in England, and
others, identical in form, in the old Saxon cemeteries of Germany.[97-*]
Fig. 110 represents one of the plainest of these wire-rings; it was
exhumed from a tumulus on Chartham Downs, a few miles from Canterbury,
Kent, in 1773, by the Rev. Bryan Faussett, who says, “the bones were
those of a very young person.” Upon the neck was a cross of silver, a
few coloured earthen beads, and “two silver rings with sliding knots.”
The industry of the same collector furnishes us with Fig. 111, a
specimen of a wire-ring so twisted as to resemble a seal ring, or one
set with a stone: the wire round the finger has been beaten out flat. It
was discovered in the extensive Saxon cemetery on Kingston Downs, near
Canterbury, on the Dover Road. The tumulus was evidently the last
resting-place of a person of small wealth, as this copper ring and two
small beads only were found in it; and it was customary to bury the
ornaments of the deceased, however valuable, with them.[98-*]
[Illustration: Fig. 112.]
[Illustration: Fig. 113.]
Ireland seems to have boasted a higher civilisation at an earlier period
than the sister kingdoms, and her ancient art-works are remarkable for
their skilled and tasteful elaboration. Gold, too, appears to have been
used more commonly there, and the museum of the Royal Irish Academy can
show a more wonderful collection of personal ornaments in that precious
metal, as once worn by the native nobles, than is to be seen in the
national museums of any other country, with the exception of Denmark.
The gold is of the purest kind and richest colour, and the manner of its
working could not be excelled by a modern goldsmith. The Londesborough
collection includes two remarkable rings (Figs. 112 and 113), which
were found with other gold ornaments near the very remarkable tumulus
known as “New Grange,” a few miles from Drogheda. They were accidentally
discovered in 1842 by a labouring man, within a few yards of the
entrance to the tumulus, at the depth of two feet from the surface of
the ground, and without any covering or protection from the earth about
them. Two bracelets of thick twisted gold, and a chain, also of gold,
were found with them. Another labouring man, hearing of this discovery,
carefully searched the spot whence they were taken, and found a denarius
of Geta, which may aid us in arriving at some conclusion as to the age
of these curious works. The stone set in both rings is a cut agate.
[Illustration]