Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/667

Rh msrormj The Romans had at their command, of transparent colours, blue, green, purple or amethystine, amber, brown, and rose; of opaque colours, white, black, red, blue, yellow, green, and orange. There are many shades of the former as well as of the latter, particularly of transparent blue, and of opaque blue, yellow, and green. Of opaque GLASS 649 it has been questioned whether that art was then practised ; but several specimens have been recently described which can leave no doubt on the point; decisive examples are afforded by two cups found at Vaspelev, in Denmark, engravings of which are published in the Annaler for Xorclz's7.' Old/.'3/Jztlqr/Iicrl for 1861, p. 305. These are small colours many varieties appear to be due to the mixture of cups, 3 inches and 2; inches high, 3 inches and 3 inches one colour with another. In any large collection of frag- wide, with feet and straight sides ; on the larger are a lion ments it would be easy to ﬁnd eight or ten varieties of and a bull, on the lesser two birds with grapes, and on each opaque blue, ranging from lapis lazuli to turquoise or to lavender, and six or seven of opaque green. varieties are fewer; the ﬁnest is a crimson red of very beautiful tint, and there are various gradations from this to a dull brick red. One variety forms the ground of a very good imitation of porphyry; and there is a dull se1ni- transparent red which, when light is passed through it, appears to be of a dull green hue. 'ith these colours the Roman vitr¢u'z'us worked, either using them singly or blending them in almost every conceivable combination, sometimes, it must be owned, with a rather and and inharmonious effect. g y These combinations of colour were effected in two ways: —ﬁrst, by glasses of two or 111ore colours being combined so as to traverse the entire substance of the object; and, secondly, by the superposition of the one colour on the other. To the former class belong all those termed mosaic and mille ﬁori, where the process of manufacture was the pre- liminary uuion, by heat, of threads of glass into a rod, which when cut transversely exhibited the same pattern in every section. Such rods were placed together side by side, and united by heat into a mass which was then formed into cups or other vessels. A vast quantity of small cups and pateras were made by this means in patterns which bear considerable resemblance to the sur- faces of madrepores, and are of the same kind as those which by the Venetians are termed “mille ﬁori.” In these every colour and every shade of colour seem to have been tried in great variety of combination with effects more or less pleasing, but transparent violet or purple appears to have been the most common ground colour. Although most of the vessels of this mille fiori glass were small, some were made of large size; a framnent in the )0SS€SSi0Il of the present writer must have fbrmed part ofl a dish not less than 20 inches in diameter. Another variety of glass, evidently much used, is that in which transparent brown glass is so mixed with opaque white and blue as to re- semble onyx. This was sometimes done with great success, and very perfect imitations of the natural stone were pro- duced. Sometimes purple glass is used in place of brown, probably with the design of imitating the precious mur- rhine. Imitations of porphyry, of serpentine, and of granite are also met with, but these were used chieﬂy in pavements, and for the decoration of walls, for which purposes the onyx—glass was likewise employed. Under this head must also be included the interlacing of bands and threads both of white and of coloured glass. Vessels are found composed of bands either so placed in sections as to present a plaited pattern, or simply arranged side by side; others, again, resemble the Venetian vitro di trina, threads of opaque white or yellow glass being twisted u1'ith Cl1(.‘.Cf[),[‘ transparent glass, and the vessel then formed by t ie we ing toaether of the rods so made. Blue threads are occasionally? intermixed, and several varieties of pattern may be iound; butdthis branch of the art does not appear to iave sen carrie by the Romans to an 'thino like the perfection to which it was afterwards bioughct by the V enetians. So few examples of glass vessels of this period which Of red the : ' found with some smaller ornaments. On the latter are the letters DVD. R. The colours are vitrified and slightly in relief; green, blue, and brown may be distinguished. They were Roman bronze vessels and other articles. Vessels also are not uncommon on the surface of which enamel colours appear in the form of spots; it is probable that these were applied in the form of melted glass, not, as in true enamel painting, in that of a ﬁnely divided powder tempered with a11 essential oil and applied cold. The ﬁrst place among those processes in which one colour was sui_)erimposed on another may be given to that by which the cameo glass was produced. In this a bubble of opaque white glass was formed at the end of the tube userl by the glass—blower; this was coated with transparent blue, and that again with opaque white, and the vessel required was formed from this threefold globe. The outer coat was then removed from that portion which was to constitute the ground, leaving the white for the ﬁgures, foliage, or other ornamentation; these were then sculptured by means of the gein-engraver’s tools. Pliny no doubt means to refer to this when he says (Nat. IIi.sl., xxxvi. 26, 66), “aliud argenti modo czelatur,” contrasting it with the process of cutting glass by the help of a wheel, to which he refers in the words immediately preceding, “aliud torno teritur.” The famous Portland or Barberini vase is the finest ex- ample of this kind of work which has come down to us, and was entire until it was broken into some hundred pieces by a drunken medical student some years ago. The pieces, however, were joined together by Mr Doubleday with extraordinary skill, and the beauty of design and execution may still be appreciated almost as well as when it was intact. A letter written by 'edgwood in 1786 to Sir William Hamilton has been published in the life of the former by Miss Meteyard (vol. ii. p. 577), which contains some interesting remarks upon this beautiful work of art. He concludes with the assertion, “I do not think £5000 for the execution of such a vase, supposing our best artists capable of such a work, would be at all equal to their gains fron1 the works they are now employed in.” It is true that the gem—engravers of that day received very high pay for their work. The two other most remarkable examples of this cameo glass are an amphora at Naples and the Auldjo vase. The amphora measures 1 foot -3 inch in height, 1 foot- 7% inches in circumference; it is shaped like the earthen amphoras with a foot far too small to support it, and must no doubt have had a stand, probably of gold; the greater part is covered with a n1ost exquisite design of garlands and vines, and two groups of boys gathering and treading grapes and playing on various iustruinents of music; below these is a line of sheep and goats in varied attitudes. The ground is blue and the ﬁgures white. It was found in a house in the Street of Tombs at Pompeii in the year 1839, and is now in the Royal Museum at Naples. It is well engraved in Ricl1ai'dso11’s Studies of Ormmzeutal Desigiz. The Auldjo vase, a part of which is or was in possession of Mr Auldjo, and another in the British Museum, is an oenochoe about 9 inches high _: the ornament consists mainly of a most beautiful band of foliage, chieﬂy of the vine, with bunches have been painted in enamel have come down to us that _, of grapes; the ground is blue and the ornaments white; X.——82