BYZANTINE GEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 18

BYZANTINE GEM.

FOR LONDON MUSEUM. LONDON. Reecnt additions to the Victoria ;-nd Albert Museum are unusually rich, beginning with the beautiful jasper Byzantine cameo of the Crucifixion, almost certainly the finest Byzantine gem in existence. It arrived from Venice so recently that a definitive iconographical study has not yet been possible, but the museum experts suggest a date in the tenth century. It closely resembles the tenth century jasper cameo showing Christ blessing, ulready in the museum, and often described hitherto as the finest Byzantine gem. Two pieces of needlework arc of exceptional charm, besides providing amusing additions to literary and natural history. One is a large tent-stitch embroidered picture of birds, of the seventeenth century, and presumably English. It represents an ornithological problem, since its central figure is a flamingo, over 2ft high, and to its right is a clearly distinguishable puffin. Neither of these birds was known to the early writers on natural history, f'onrad Gessner illustrated a puffin oniv from a skin sent him by Dr. C'ains, of Cambridge, and even in l<Vi7 John Johnstone did not know how a flamingo looked. Since the puffin is found in 'Wales, North England and Norway, and the flamingo in Spain, Dalmntia and the Eastern Mediterranean, it has been ■suggested that the embroideress' family contained a traveller who could draw, •nabling her to provide the first recognisable portraits of these birds. Other additions include a JJustelli wcelain figure of the Virgin, tho lost "ourth monkey in bronze from fti.iv.nmi Bologna's fountain, designed for Francesco de Medici's garden, an English 'vorv relief of the Trinity, silk tissues f rom Byzantium and Persia, and a 'elightful English co-cart or baby-catre, octagonal, and with a tray for toys, the 'ast the gift of Mr. B. Middleditcii.