Читать книгу The Book of the Pearl. The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems онлайн

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The beautiful Tyszkiewicz bronze statuette of Aphrodite was acquired in 1900 by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and has even yet a pearl in a fairly good state of preservation suspended from each ear by a spiral thread of gold which passes quite through the gem and also through the lobe of the ear. This statuette has been described as “the most beautiful bronze Venus known.”^[22] Professor Froehner considers that it belongs nearer to the period of Phidias (circa 500–430 B.C.) than to that of Praxiteles (circa 400–336 B.C.); but Dr. Edward Robinson does not concur in this opinion, and refers it to the Hellenic period (circa 330–146 B.C.).

However, considering the very large accumulations, relatively few pearls of antiquity now remain, and none of these is of great ornamental value. Those in archæological collections and art museums are more or less decayed through the ravages of time and accident to which they have been subjected. While coins, gold jewelry, crystal gems, etc., of ancient civilizations are relatively numerous, the less durable pearls have not survived the many centuries of pillage, waste, and burial in the earth.