Connecting to Antiquity Through Touch: Gem Impressions in the Long Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This article seeks to understand what an approach grounded in materiality and tactile engagement can offer to our understanding of why collectors might have been drawn to gem impressions in the long eighteenth century. Instead of looking to a specific collector or producer of gem impressions, this study examines interactions with gem impressions from a more general perspective. I speculate how, through touch, antiquarians may have used gem impressions as an aide-mémoire to bridge connections between eighteenth-century gem impressions and Greco-Roman gem traditions through shared function, materiality, production techniques, and signatures.