Gems Collection of Farnese Family

National Archaeological museum of Naples is famous for it's precious gems collection. The Farnese family collected camei from the middle of the XVII century.

The name Cameo is used for two kinds of treatment, today: both positive and negative. Originally, only the positive, raised picture was called Cameo.



The negative carved picture, "intaglio", you can see on this photo.



They used different semiprecious gemstones for this incredibly thin work. And the collection Farnese is the prove of it (I read in some articles that they used only 2 or 3 minerals to make camei)



One of the most known pieces is Farnese Cup, a famous cameo 20 cm large that was a cup for offerings during the Greek religious rituals: they used to pour liquids on the statues of divinities.