The practice of the art of Cameo-cutting solves to a certain extent one aspect of the great problem now puzzling the most astute minds—how to find remunerative work for skilled hands. Here is a field at present quite unoccupied—an industry admirably adapted to thousands already trained in the requirements of art, and only needing the suggestion to enable them to realise the fruit of years of industrious and patient study. In this, as in all other artistic occupations, there must be a groundwork on which to ensure success. Any one ignorant alike of the principles of drawing or modelling or carving can never become proficient in the art of Cameo-cutting, though by patient labour success may be obtained as a copyist, and the worker be able to cut geometric patterns, flowers, and coats-of-arms, which would command a ready market. For the higher successes attainable by a Cameo engraver, the position of a true artist, whose work would be recognised by the form of a hand or the modelling of an eye or an ear, there must be a previous knowledge of drawing, with skill in modelling and ability to carve.

Nothing less than a first place should content the Cameo-worker. The age is one which is eminently suitable for the growth of the profession. Drawing has for many years been taught in Schools of Art on scientific principles, and pupils have proceeded from drawing to modelling, to carving in wood, or to painting in water and oils in these schools, until a point of excellence has been reached thought impossible before they were established. Even in the rate-sustained Board Schools children of tender years are taught to draw with surprising accuracy, and such of them as take pleasure in their work might very easily learn how to cut simple forms suitable for buttons or bracelets. The only thing they would have to acquire would be the use of the graver, following upon the work of the pencil. Nor is this an exaggeration, because two little girls of eight and ten, from watching their father at work, actually fashioned little vases and hearts in pieces of shell by using fine files. From children as inexperienced as these, and from such an elementary knowledge of drawing as the School Board imparts to the young, up to the most experienced artist,—the gold medallist, the born genius with pencil or chisel,—there is enough in Cameo-work to supply scope for all—enough to gratify the child’s wish, and the larger ambition; and, beyond the choicest specimen of art in existence, enough to leave still greater triumphs to be realised by future workers. By the practice of this art no industry at present in existence in England would be injured; but, on the contrary, many industries, such as those of the workers in silver and gold, the wood-carver, and the cabinet-maker, would receive fresh development. The present generation has never been in a position to consider this industry as one attainable by the people until the present time; nor would the Cameo supplant any artistic article at present enjoying public favour. Cameos may be carved small enough to adorn a lady’s ring, a gentleman’s shirt-stud, or a pin. They may be mounted for bracelets, or act as pendants, or brooches, or be used for hairpins, for buttons to fasten back the vest, or for jackets; as solitaires for the shirt, or for sleeve-links. In the style of ladies’ dress now worn there would be an unfailing demand. They may be fixed in articles of ornament for the desk and table, inlaid in vases, caskets, or dressing-cases; framed in the carved overmantel, inserted in the backs of chairs, inset in curtain bands; or mounted on altar crosses, set around Communion-cups or in alms-dishes, or worked into marble memorials of the dead; or they might be inlet in the bindings of books. From the variety of their ground—ranging from pink, through every shade of brown, to an imperial purple, and a magnificent black—there is no marble, metal, or wood with which the Cameo would not harmonise. In the course of a conversation recently with one of our Princesses, who is a patron of art, this point was dwelt upon, and the suggestion was made that an anchor carved in shell would make an appropriate button for a lady’s yachting costume.