WORKS IN NIELLO.

The art of working in niello, which led Maso Finiguerra, a sculptor and worker in gold and silver, to the invention of copper plate engraving, was very early practiced in Italy. In the 15th century, and long before, it was the practice to decorate the church and other plate with designs in niello; and also caskets, sword and dagger hilts, and various kinds of ornaments. The designs were hatched with a steel point in gold or silver, then engraved with the burin, and run in while hot, with a composition called niello, an Italian term derived from the Latin nigellum—a compound of silver, lead, copper, sulphur, and borax, used by the ancients, and easily fusible, and of a dark color. The superfluous parts of the niello were then scraped away, and the surface polished, when the engraved part appeared with all the effect of a print. Lanzi says, “this substance (nigellum) being incorporated with the silver, and the whole being polished, produced the effect of shadows, which, contrasted with the clearness of the silver, gave the entire work the appearance of a chiaro-scuro in silver.” There are many very beautiful specimens of this species of work, particularly vases, cups, and paxes, or images of Christ on the cross, which the people in Catholic countries kiss after service, called the kiss of peace. The most remarkable known specimen in niello, is a very curious cup, preserved in the British Museum. Its total height, including the statuette of a cherub on the top of the lid, is about three feet. It is composed of silver, and the whole, except the border and statuette, is embellished with various fanciful designs. For a long time it was the property of the noble family of van Bekerhout, who made a present of it to Calonia, the sculptor of the statue of John van Eyck, in the Academy of Arts at Bruges. The widow of this artist sold it to Mr. Henry Farrer, who afterwards disposed of it to the British Museum for the sum of £350.

Remarkable as this process was, there arose out of it another incalculably more so. It became a practice for goldsmiths, who wished to preserve their designs, to take impressions of their plates with earth, over which liquid sulphur was poured, and from which, when cold, the earth was removed. But Maso Finiguerra, a goldsmith and sculptor of Florence, and a pupil of the celebrated Masaccio, about the middle of the 15th century, carried the process still further, for with a mixture of soot and oil he filled the cavities of the engraving he had made, as a preparation for niello, and by pressing damp paper upon it with a roller, obtained impressions on the paper, having, as Vasari says, “Veni vano come disegnate di penna”—all the appearance of drawings done with a pen. Finiguerra was followed by Baccio Baldini, a goldsmith of Florence, who, according to Vasari, employed the eminent artist Sandro Botticelli, to design for him.

Lanzi says in 1801, a pax from the collection of the Grand Duke of Florence, supposed to have been executed by Matteo Dei, an eminent worker in niello in the early part of the 15th century, was taken to pieces to examine the workmanship. The embellishments upon its surface represented the Conversion of St. Paul, and on the niello being extracted, the engraved work was found not at all deep; and ink and paper being provided, twenty-five fine proof prints were struck from it, which were distributed among a few eminent artists and connoisseurs. One of them is now in the collection of the senator Martelli at Florence.

The arts are generally to be traced to a humble origin, and in these works in niello, often discovering little taste, we recognize the cradle of that of engraving on copper, to which engraving on steel has within the last few years succeeded. In the earliest efforts of this kind, the lines produced were comparatively rude and unmeaning, and had nothing more to recommend them than their merely representing a particular sort of markings, or slight hatchings with a pen, without any apparent degree of execution or expression. It was not long, however, before this incipient art became indebted to the elegant etchings of the great masters in painting, as well as to their drawings in pen and ink. It acquired accuracy and taste from the drawings of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, and Lionardo da Vinci, which connoisseurs of our own time have seen and admired. Some of those by Da Vinci were hatched in a square and delicate manner, with a white fluid on dark colored paper; while those of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle inclined more to the lozenge, in black or brown ink. They even carried this style of hatching with the pencil into their pictures, some of which adorn the Vatican, and into the famous cartoons, which are the glory of the picture gallery at Hampton Court; and by the persevering application of the graver, the art has been advancing to the present period.

When compared with painting, it appears but of recent invention, being coeval only with the art of printing.

It is for us to rejoice in the immense power that it now possesses, and to avoid the error pointed out by Lord Bacon when he said: “We are too prone to pass those ladders by which the arts are reared, and generally to reflect all the merit to the last new performer.”