Gem engraving in Britain from antiquity to the present

This study of the art of gem engraving draws on the collections of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, the world's largest collection of such pieces, and also contains a detailed catalogue of the museum's holdings. In a comprehensive analysis, Kagan traces the development of the art form from its Roman origins, and the establishment of the first Roman gem-engraving workshops in Britain, to its tentative reappearance in the 14th and 15th centuries, and rebirth in the Tudor era. The period of greatest artistic output and creativity, however, was during the fashion for all things neo-classical in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and Kagan looks in detail at the manufacturers and collectors of engraved gems, and examines the connections with the growing antiquarian movement.