Engraved Gems at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richter, Gisela M.A. CATALOGUE OF ENGRAVED GEMS OF THE CLASSICAL STYLE. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1920. Small 8vo, later gold cloth; original printed card covers trimmed and mounted. lxxiv, 232, (2) pages; text figures; 88 plates. Fine. The first edition of Richter’s important catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of engraved gems, revised in 1956. Sinkankas 5453: “highly detailed, and preceded by a most valuable introduction in which Richter discusses the significance and development of engraved gems, seals, designs on gems, gem engravers, forgeries, engraving technique, and gem materials. The catalog describes pieces dated to the Minoan era and thence forward into the 18th and 19th centuries.”