Posts and comments about all things
ENGRAVED GEMS.Posts and Comments about all things ENGRAVED GEMS.
Marchant’s 100 Gem Catalogue Update: Putting Faces to Names
In 1792, not too long after his 16 year stint in Rome, Nathaniel Marchant published a catalogue listing 100 impressions of gems he had engraved, which together with a set of the impressions, was made available by subscription. The catalogue listing was by subject or...
Prices Do Not Always go UP
A recent antiquities sale at Christie’s New York Live Auction 21709 ANTIQUITIES LOT 161 was for “A GREEK AMETHYST RINGSTONE WITH A BUST OF A GODDESS” It was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it has a certain familiarity because it was chosen to be the...
Coin Impressions by Tassie
Are these Tassie coin impressions? I think so. Let me tell you why. (If you would like to skip all the background noise and jump straight to the, what we now call "Tim Medhurst" Tassie coin impressions, CLICK HERE)James (1735-1799) and William (1777-1860) Tassie were...
Two Pounds of Tassies for Shelley
Awhile back the "Inataglio Blog" on our other site, "MyIntaglios.com" had a post entitled, “Tassie, Seals, and Keats” discussing the fondness of the poet Keats for Tassie seals. Recently, we came across a reference to the poet Shelley’s (1792-1822) similar sentiment...
Gilt-edged paper wrap – A lost craft.
Did you ever notice the gilded frame that surrounds so many of the antique plaster or sulfur impressions of intaglios and other engraved gems? It is the gilt-edged paper that usually wraps them. If you collect or deal in the impressions from the Grand Tour era, it’s...