Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/217

Rh inclining more to a violet cast than the pyrope, and can be obtained in larger pieces. The ancient garnets, from Etruscan and Byzantine remains, some of which are flat plates set in gold, or carved with mythological designs, were probably obtained from India or perhaps from the remarkable locality for large masses of garnet in German East Africa. Many are cut with the portraits of Sassanian kings with their characteristic pearl earrings. The East Indians carve small dishes out of a single garnet.

The carving of elegant objects from transparent quartz, or rock crystal, has been carried on since the 16th century, first in Italy, by the greatest masters of the time, and afterwards in Prague, under Rudolph II., until the Thirty Years’ War, when the industry was wiped out. Splendid examples of this work are in the important museums of Europe. Many of these are reproduced now in Vienna, and fine examples are included in some American museums. Among them are rock-crystal dishes several inches across, beautifully engraved in intaglio and mounted in silver with gems. Other varieties of quartz minerals, such as agate, jasper, &c., and other ornamental stones of similar hardness, are likewise wrought into all manner of art objects. Caskets, vases, ewers, coupés and animal and other fanciful forms, are familiar in these opaque and semi-transparent stones, either carved out of single masses or made of separate pieces united with gold, silver or enamel in the most artistic manner. Cellini, and other masters in the 16th and 17th centuries, vied with each other in such work.

The greatest development of (q.v.), however, has been seen in Germany, at Waldkirch in Breisgau, and especially at Idar and Oberstein on the Nahe, in Oldenburg. The industry began in the 14th century, at the neighbouring town of Freiburg, but was transferred to Waldkirch, where it is still carried on, employing about 120 men and women, the number of workmen having increased nearly threefold since the middle of the 19th century. The Idar and Oberstein industry was founded somewhat later, but is much more extensive. Mills run by water-power line the Nahe river for over 30 m., from above Kreuznach to below Idar, and gave employment in 1908 to some 5000 people—1625 lapidaries, 160 drillers, 100 engravers, 2900 cutters, &c., besides 300 jewellers and 300 dealers. The industry began here in consequence of the abundance of agates in the amygdaloid rocks of the vicinity; and it is probable that many of the Cinque Cento gems, and perhaps even some of the Roman ones, were obtained in this region. By the middle of the 18th century the best material was about exhausted, but the industry had become so firmly established that it has been kept up and increased by importing agates. In 1540 there were only three mills; in 1740, twenty-five; in 1840, fifty; in 1870, one hundred and eighty-four. Agents and prospectors are sent all over the world to procure agates and other ornamental stones, and enormous quantities are brought there and stored. The chief source of agate supply has been in Uruguay, but much has been brought from other distant lands. It was estimated that fifty thousand tons were stored at Salto in Uruguay at one time.

The grinding is done on large, horizontal wheels like grindstones, some 6 ft. in diameter and one-fourth as thick, run by water-wheels. The faces of some of these grindstones are made with grooves of different sizes so that round objects or convex surfaces can be ground very easily and rapidly. An agate ball or marble, for instance, is made from a piece broken to about the right size and held in one of these semicircular grooves until one-half of it is shaped, and then turned over and the other half ground in the same way. The polishing is done on wooden wheels, with tripoli found in the vicinity; any carving or ornamentation is then put on with a wheel-edge or a drill by skilled workmen.

In the United States the Drake Company at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has done cutting and polishing in hard materials on a grand scale. It is here, and here only, that the agatized wood from Chalcedony Park, Arizona, has been cut and polished, large sections of tree-trunks having been made into table-tops and columns of wonderful beauty, with a polish like that of a mirror.

Much of the finest lapidary work, both on a large and a small scale, is done in Russia. Catherine II. sought to develop the precious stone resources of the Ural region, and sent thither two Italian lapidaries. This led to the founding of an industry which now employs at least a thousand people. The work is done either at the great imperial lapidary establishment at Ekaterinburg, or in the vicinity of the mines by lapidary masters, as they are called, each of whom has his peculiar style. The products are sold to dealers at the great Russian fairs at Nizhniy Novgorod, Moscow and Ekaterinburg. The imperial works at the last-named place have command of an immense water-power, and are on such a scale that great masses of hard stones can be worked as marble is in other countries. Much of the machinery is primitive, but the applications are ingenious and the results unsurpassed anywhere. The work done is of several classes, ranging from the largest and most massive to the smallest and most delicate. There is (1) the cutting of facetted gems, as topaz, aquamarine, amethyst, &c., from the mines of the Ural, and of other gem-stones also; this is largely done by means of the cadrans, a small machine held in the hand, by which the angle of the facets can be adjusted readily when once the stone has been set, and which produces work of great beauty and accuracy. Then there is (2) a vast variety of ornamental objects, large and small, some weighing 2000 ℔ and over, and requiring years to complete; they are made from the opaque minerals of the Ural and Siberia—malachite, rhodonite, lapis-lazuli, aventurine and jasper. A peculiar type of work is (3) the production of beautiful groups of fruit, flowers and leaves, in stones selected to match exactly the colour of each object represented. These are chosen with great care and skill, somewhat as in the Florentine mosaics, not to produce a flat inlaid picture, however, but a perfect reproduction of form, size and colour. These groups are carved and polished from hard stones, whereas the Florentine mosaic work includes many substances that are much softer, as glass, shell, &c.

Enormous masses of material are brought to these works; the supply of rhodonite, jade, jaspers of various colours, &c., sometimes amounting to hundreds of tons. One mass of Kalkansky jasper weighed nearly 9 tons, and a mass of rhodonite above 50 tons; the latter required a week of sledging, with ninety horses, to bring it from the quarry, only 14 m. from the works. About seventy-five men are employed, at twenty-five roubles a month (£2, 11s. 6d.), and ten boys, who earn from two to ten roubles (4s. to £1). A training school is connected with the works, where over fifty boys are pupils; on graduating they may remain as government lapidaries or set up on their own account.

There are two other great Russian imperial establishments of the same kind. One of these, founded by Catherine II., is at Peterhof, a short distance from the capital; it is a large building fitted up with imperial elegance. Here are made all the designs and models for the work done at Ekaterinburg; these are returned and strictly preserved. In the Peterhof works are to be seen the largest and most remarkable achievements of the lapidarian art, vases and pedestals and columns of immense size, made from the hardest and most elegant stones, often requiring the labour of years for their completion. The third great establishment is at Kolyvan, in Siberia, bearing a like relation to the minerals and gem-stones of the Altai region that the works of Ekaterinburg do to the Ural. The three establishments are conducted at large expense, from the private revenue of the tsar. The Russian emperors have always taken special interest in lapidary work, and the products of these establishments have made that country famous throughout the world. The immense monolithic columns of the Hermitage and of St Isaac’s Cathedral, of polished granite and other hard and elegant stones, are among the triumphs of modern architectural work; and the Alexander column at St Petersburg is a single polished shaft, 13 ft. in diameter and 82 ft. in height, of the red Finland granite.

The finest lapidary work of modern France is done at Moulin la Vacherie Saint Simon, Seine-et-Marne, where some seventy-five of the most skilful artisans are engaged. The products are all manner of ornamental objects of every variety of beautiful stone, all finished with absolute perfection of detail. Columns and other ornaments of porphyry and the like, of ancient workmanship, are brought hither from Egypt and elsewhere, and recut into smaller objects for modern artistic tastes. Here, too, are made spheres of transparent quartz—“crystal balls”—up to 6 in. in diameter, the material for which is obtained in Madagascar.

A few words may be said, by way of comparison and contrast, about the lapidary art of Japan and China, especially in relation to the crystal balls, now reproduced in France and elsewhere. The tools are the simplest, and there is no machinery; but the lack of it is made up by time and patience, and by hereditary pride, as a Japanese artisan can often trace back his art through many generations continuously. To make a quartz ball, a large crystal or mass is chipped or broken into available shape, and then the piece is trimmed into a spherical form with a small steel hammer. The polishing is effected by grinding with emery and garnet-powder and plenty of water, in semi-cylindrical pieces of cast iron, of sizes varying with that of the ball to be ground, which is kept constantly turning as it is rubbed. Small balls are fixed in the end of a bamboo tube, which the worker continually revolves. The final brilliant polish is given by the hand, with rouge-powder (haematite). This process is evidently very slow, and only the cheapness of labour prevents the cost from being too great.

The spheres are now made quite freely but very differently in France, Germany and the United States. They are ground in semicircular grooves in a large horizontal wheel of hard stone, such as is used for grinding garnets at Oberstein and Idar, or else by gradually revolving them on a lathe and fitting them into hollow cylinders. Plenty of water must be used, to prevent heating and cracking. The polishing is effected on a wooden wheel with tripoli. Work of this kind is now done in the United States, in the production of the spheres and carved ornaments of rock-crystal, that is equal to any in the world. But most of the material for these supposed Japanese balls now comes from Brazil or Madagascar, and the work is done in Germany or France.

The cutting of amber is a special branch of lapidary work developed along the Baltic coast of Germany, where amber is chiefly obtained. The amber traffic dates back to prehistoric times; but the cutting industry in northern Europe cannot be definitely traced further back than the 14th century, when gilds of amber-workers were known at Bruges and Lübeck. Fine carving was also done at Königsberg as early as 1399. The latter city and Danzig have become the chief seats of the amber industry, and the business has increased immensely