Federico Dolce: Descrizioni di dugento Gemme Antiche nelle quali si contiene un saggio del vario disegno usato dalle piu’ colte antiche nazione. Divise queste in quattro tavole. Opera Utilissima per la gioventu’ studiosa delle belle arti. Roma MDCCXVII (1792). Dactyliotheca (200x340 mm, 3411.00 g). V. Kockel and D. Graepler (eds.): Daktyliotheken. Götter und Caesaren aus der Schublade. Antike Gemmen in Abdrucksammlungen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. München 2006, p. 21, ill. 4. The folios complete in four volumes, the separate printed commentary missing. Beautifully bound in brown and green half leather and flowered boards, spine lettered in gilt. Minor damage to the spine of Vol. I, both hooks on Vol. II and one hook on Vol. III missing, some damage to the paper-covered wooden edges. Interior fine, the casts complete, with gilt edges and in pristine condition. An extremely rare and beautifully produced work of contemporary art.


Dactyliothecae emerged in the mid-18th century as a convenient form of studying, and showing off, Classical art in the form of gemstones. In a time when even the capitals of western Europe offered few opportunities to sight the art of ancient cultures in natura, the handy folios were a comparably inexpensive substitution for the famous Grand Tours, educational journeys undertaken by upper-class young men across southern Europe. The Age of Enlightenment brought along a gradual shift from studying ancient art mostly in the context of literal sources toward the appreciation of the inherent beauty and the aesthetics of the artwork itself. While book illustrations of famous statues and artwork were well known, the shifting zeitgeist criticized them for their lack of accuracy and their inability to fully capture the essence of three-dimensional pieces of art such as statues, coins and gemstones. The introduction of plaster casting of whole statues, a simple form of duplication of important artworks, soon led to adaptation of the same technique to the reproduction of gemstones, from which impressions could be easily and quickly made. Cast impressions of gemstones had many advantages: their small size made them cheap to produce and easy to transport and hence greatly facilitated the compiling of large collections to compare styles and motives. Soon a community of collectors arose, with some enthusiasts assembling thousands and thousands of casts over the years.

Perhaps the most famous of them was the Scottish stonemason and gem engraver James Tassie (1735-1799), whose collection is said to have eventually exceeded 15,000 pieces, surpassing those of all his rivals. That is not to say that Tassie had made or acquired this many casts of Greek and Roman originals: he and his contemporaries valued art for its stylistic perfection first, not for its ancient authenticity, meaning that a contemporarily produced gemstone of highly sophisticated style and beauty would – much in contrast to the zeitgeist today - be preferred over a mediocre Greek or Roman original. This approach resulted in collections of his time wildly mingling casts of ancient originals and contemporary gems, most commonly without any differentiation whatsoever.

The concept of Dactyliothecae, handy folios of casts of gemstones, first emerged somewhat before the midcentury as a convenient way of arranging and showcasing smaller groups of gems by subjects. Among several early enthusiasts, Philipp Daniel Lippert (1702-1785), the curator of the Dresden Skulpturensammlung, was perhaps the most influential. His ‘Dactyliotheca Universalis’, published in 1767, laid the groundwork for all later Dactyliothecae: it was an impressive collection of casts, edited in an annotated large-format folio with drawers containing the gems. Despite its rather hefty prize, the monumental work became very popular among the upper classes, where it served as a showcase for, and basis of, sophisticated discussions of art. Soon other Dactyliothecae followed, some of which were encyclopedic, while others were arranged by motives or artists.

We are proud to be able to offer for sale one of the most important such Dactyliothecae, Federico Dolce’s wonderful ‘Descrizioni di Dugento Gemme Antiche’. Federico was the son of Francesco M. Dolce and Faostina Dehn and the grandson of Christian Dehn, who was one of the earliest manufactures of cast impressions of gemstones in Italy. In 1772, Federico’s parents published an encyclopedic Dactyliotheca, which presented the collection of Faostina’s father Christian. Federido followed in his parents' footsteps in 1792, when he published his own Dactyliotheca, which was the first to arrange the presented gems not by motive, but by style. Accompanied by a printed commentary, it presented a total of 200 gems in four volumes, divided into 13 categories:


1. Prima Epoca dello Stile Egiziano (1-2)
2. Seconda Epoca dello Stile Egiziano (3-6)
3. Terza Epoca dello Stile Egiziano (7-9)
4. Quarta Epoca dello Stile Egiziano (10)
5. Stile Greco (11-139)
6. Stile Incerto (140-143)
7. Stile Etrusco (144-150)
8. Stile Latino, Primo Epoca fomigliante all’ Etrusco (151-154)
9. Stile Latino, Seconda Epoca fomigliante al Greco (155-176)
10. Stile Latino, Terza Epoca di Decadenza (177-178)
11. Stile Gotico (179)
12. Stile Persiano (180)
13. Appendice, Di vari Stili, e vari Sogetti (181-200)

From the distribution of the casts alone it quickly becomes apparent that to Federico Dolce, Greek gems were the pinnacle of miniature art, with a distant echo found in Roman gems up until the Severans, whereas the few late Roman, Gothic and Persian pieces only serve as negative examples of an evolution toward decadence. This mirrors the spirit of his time, which saw the publication of such groundbreaking works as Gibbon’s controversial but highly influential ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ (1776-1789), in which the famous British historian expressed his view that decadence in general and the rise of Christianity in particular had led to the downfall of the Classical World in the form of the Roman Empire. Dactyliothecae continued to enjoy much popularity in the early eighteen hundreds, but quick advances in historical science and textual criticism in the second half of the 19th century eventually led, again, to a changing zeitgeist. Increased mobility, extended public collections of art and the rapidly emerging hunt for authenticity saw no use anymore for the old-fashioned showcases of wildly mingled plaster casts of both ancient and modern gemstones, which gradually went out of fashion: many of them were dispersed as single volumes, often with damaged and/or missing casts, and even more were permanently lost. As a result, complete Dactyliothecae are extremely rare today. While the present, wonderful example lacks its printed commentary, which was published in a separate volume, it makes up for this by the completeness and the pristine condition of the casts, as well as by the beautiful original binding and spine with gold lettering on green and brown leather. Having been preserved for almost two centuries in the library of the family of the historian Isaak Iselin (1728-1782) and his wife Helena Forcart (1740-1810), it was acquired several decades ago by its current owner, who kept it as one of his most beloved treasures before deciding, in 2019, that now is the time to hand it over to a proud new owner.