Note 17 — Chapter XIV · THE MIND AND THE HAND.

The goldsmith’s art was one of the finest among the ancients, and so continued far into the Middle Ages. The cutting of cameos, for example, required the highest skill and produced the most exquisite results. Mr. Ruskin calls attention to the fact that “all the great early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without exception, began by being goldsmiths’ apprentices;” and that “they felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master craftsman who had mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, and took his name rather than their own.”—“Fors Clavigera,” Part III., p. 291. By John Ruskin. LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881.