Engraving Agates

It is the agate, and the varieties of which it is the type, that have in all ages furnished to the engraver the stones best suited to his art.

One of the most remarkable engravings upon agate, and one of the finest specimens of this stone, is represented by Fig. 74. It is the bust of Alexander the Great. The head is carved in relief, and its colour is quite different from that of the groundwork of the stone. It is set in a superb frame of enamelled gold.

The fig. following (Fig. 75) is a chalcedony displaying a bacchic bull with an ivy wreath around his body and a thyrsus under his feet. It is one of the most celebrated of antique engraved gems, and bears the signature of the famous graver Hyllus.

As a specimen of modern engraving, we represent by Fig. 76 that celebrated stone known as the "seal of Michael Angelo." It is a small transparent cornelian engraved en creux or entaille. In the small space of an oval, hardly more than half an inch in length, there are fourteen figures, besides the scenery of a river with water-monsters and a fisherman. It is a bacchanalian or vintage scene, and it recalls a part of Michael Angelo's fresco of "Judith committing the head of Holophernes to her attendant." Critics are at variance concerning this cornelian: it has been ascribed to the famous engraver Pyrgototes, with the supposition that Michael Angelo used its design as a passage of his great fresco; and, on the other hand, it is called a modern chef-d'oeuvre, whose engraver has been inspired by Michael Angelo.