Coming to the epoch of the Renaissance, the part played by Italy in this movement has already been dwelt upon in our chapter on Bronzes. It need scarcely be said, that in ivory work, also, attempts have been made to detect the hand of the greatest artists of the times, beginning with Michael Angelo himself, who has been credited with so many wonderful figures of the Saviour. At the same time, it is certain that many celebrated men in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, wrought in this material. But the bulk of the ordinary works was produced by special artists, whose names have not in all cases reached us, although many of them well deserved to do so. In the Correr Museum at Venice, there is a bas-relief representing a satyr surprising a sleeping nymph, which has been attributed to Agostino Carracci, who was at once painter, goldsmith, and engraver, and who certainly engraved this composition on copper, Cope, surnamed Fiamingo, a Fleming by birth, but settled in Rome, there executed some ewers, with their basins, covered all over with graceful carvings. We have seen a remarkable bust of Cosimo II. de' Medici, by Alessandro Algardi. Frate Clementi also worked in this material about 1638, and a little later on Donatello Fioren-tino carved an exquisite nude female figure.

France also occupied a worthy position in this branch of Art during the sixteenth century, and was far from abandoning a pursuit in which she had achieved such signal triumphs in the previous ages. But here also, as in so many other special departments, individual names occur but rarely. Who, for instance, was the skilful statuary who modelled, as if in wax, the marvellous bust of Diane de Poitiers, preserved in the Louvre? No one can now say, and yet this is undoubtedly a masterpiece. Francois Duquesnoy himself, known as Francois Flamand, chief of the ivory carvers above all others, marked his figures not by his name, but by the boldness of their attitudes, the softness of the carnations, and that breadth of touch which causes the figures of his women and children still to throb with life. Both Cluny and the Louvre possess charming groups and bas-reliefs by his hand. Francis van Bossuit of Brussels, whose taste had been chastened by a long residence and thoughtful studies in Rome, trusted the permanent recognition of his unsigned figures to their innate charm and scientific treatment. At this period, Jean de Bologne and his disciples were also distinguishing themselves as workers in ivory. Later on, this pliant material adapting itself more readily than any other to the subtle forms of realism, the ivory carvers began to follow the taste of Rubens, and so marked is this style, that connoisseurs describe the greater part of such work by the name of Flemish ivories, an expression to which certain events have moreover imparted an historic value. Louis XIV. had invited to his court van Obstal or Opstal of Antwerp, and after having commissioned him to execute some fine ivory carvings, caused him to be received by the Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. The Dutch artist, Jacob Zeller, was also at work from the year 1620, while the Burgundian sculptor, C. Lacroix, who had worked in Genoa, preserved in his busts the impress of the French manner. On the other hand, P. S. Jaillot and Lucas Faydherbe slavishly followed all the eccentricities of fashion, while Chevalier sought in London a field for his talent as a portraitist. The last names that have occurred to us, are those of Rosset, who carved in ivory the busts of Voltaire and Rousseau, and of J. B. Xaverre, author of a bacchante.

Ivory statuette. by Franpois Flamand. (Musee de Cluny.).

But nowhere has ivory been worked more perseveringly or with greater enthusiasm than in German)-. Here, as in Italy, the very greatest names are associated with this art. A little relief, preserved in Cluny, bears the date of 1545, with the monogram of Hans Sebald Beham. Here, also, the medallion portraits vie with the most finished works in lithographic stone and wood, while artists display their ingenuity in multiplying the applications of this material. Shaped into circular forms and carved with subjects with women and children, and riotous bacchanalian scenes in which Silenus and the satyrs play a prominent part, the ivory was fashioned into hanaps, tankards, and other dnnking-vessels, richly mounted in silver. Elsewhere it is employed for the handles of carving knives, forks and spoons, as well as for portable knives. The ornamental bas-reliefs are past counting, while counters for play, boxes and snuff-boxes are met with in endless variety. Some few names of individual artists have been handed down, as, for instance, in the seventeenth century, Angerman, Christopher Harrich, who died in 1630, and who, taking up a French fashion of the close of the Renaissance, amused himself by coupling skeletons with groups of young women. At the same time flourished Leo Pronner of Nuremberg, no less painstaking than talented, who would carve as many as a hundred heads on a cherry-stone, the magnifying glass being needed to detect all their varied expressions. Then come George Weckhard, Leonhard Kern, of Nuremberg; Lobenigke, Pfeifhofen, Rapp, Barthel of Dresden; Raimund Falz, devoting his talents to medal engraving and ivory carving. We may also mention the brothers Lorenz and Stephen Zich, of Nuremberg, specially skilled as ivory turners. Balthaser Permoser, born 1650, in Bavaria, after working for fourteen years in Italy, continued to practise his art in Dresden, till his death in 1732. In the same city Such worked in ivory about the year 1737, before entering the porcelain manufacture as modeller.