We have not here to consider tortoise-shell as a material, for we have already seen it employed in the manufacture of veneered furniture. This was the only form in which the ancients used it, and Pliny tells us that Carvilius Pollion was the first to cut it into thin plates and to apply it upon plateaux, and the tops of tables.

The middle-ages, following in this an Oriental custom, employed tortoise-shell in rods {baguettes) and small cuttings to enrich the work upon ivory caskets.

It was reserved for modern times to discover the means of softening the shell, so as to form, by soldering or joining the pieces while warm, tables of wide dimensions; or to mould it into vases, flambeaux, caskets, boxes of various shapes more or less twisted in utensils of many kinds, and thus render it worthy to serve as a subjectile to the most precious works, and to vie with the productions of the goldsmith and of the jeweller.

It was in the seventeenth century, about the time of Louis XIV., that work in this style received its highest development; and Laurenti, of Naples, seems to us to have contributed most to this result, by softening the pliant shell to conform to every caprice of his imagination.

Etui of tortoise-shell gold pique. (Collection of Dr. Piogey.).

But let us leave for a moment the consideration of the shell as a material, and deal with the modes of its ornamentation. The most important, termed pose d'or, consisted in inlaying in the tortoise-shell a mass of gold presenting the silhouettes of figures, monuments, baldachins and arabesques, the details of which were subsequently chased with extreme care.

The pique d'or the complement of the first decoration, consists in driving into the shell extremely small golden nails set close together so as to form patterns of foliage, flowers, or shells which, set round the chased designs, or serving to complete them, imparted to the whole the utmost delicacy. Where the diameter of these golden nails was enlarged, either to obtain foliage of bolder character, or to give a certain prominence to grounds partially in lozenges, the work received another name and was known as clute d'or.

Tortoise-shell pique and pose d'or was certainly in favour with French artists, and its use was for a long time in vogue, since we see it pass from the style of Louis XIV. to that of Louis XV. through a succession of small objects of very exquisite workmanship, especially watch cases. But as the cabinet of Baron Gustave de Rothschild presents us with the most complete and richest collection of Neapolitan works of this kind we have ever met with, we shall proceed to borrow from it a few illustrations. See, first of all, a large helmet-shaped ewer, lobed and scalloped and with an elegant handle, which one would really believe to have been made out of a single piece; it stands upon an oblong plateau, also lobed, on the bottom of which is the subject, exquisitely chased, of Diana and Endymion, enclosed in a large medallion with masks, caryatides, and grotesque figures, also in chased gold, relieved by ornaments in pique of wondrous delicacy. On the rim of the basin we read iMurentis F. Neapoli, and upon the ewer, on a banderole of gold, D. L.aurenziis F. Nea.

A cup nine inches in diameter) is adorned with the story of Rinaldo and Armida; others of still greater dimensions have as their subjects landscapes with ruins surrounded by rich borders of medallions, wreaths and flowers.

A box a pourtour complique shows Ariadne abandoned to despair; another a vase filled with flowers, set upon a bracket. The covered goblet, the candlesticks, the brush, the snuffers, even the opera-glass which complete the toilet service, are no less rich both in execution and ornamentation.

The Sechan collection contains a plate, lobed and cut out, very closely approaching in composition and execution the toilet set just mentioned : the case of red morocco in which it is enclosed bears the arms and fleur-de-lis of Louis XIV., which sufficiently proves the high esteem in which this piece was held.

Besides the ewer of Laurenti, Baron Gustave de Rothschild has other specimens very remarkable on which the pique and the pose d'or are complicated by the introduction of an incrustation of engraved mother-of-pearl. There, amidst the shells and grounds of a lozenge pattern, appear, within a frame of endives, Minerva seated at the foot of a palm-tree, the Judgment of Paris, sea-views, etc. These characters of the decoration, and certain imperfections in the drawing of the figures, cause us to assign to these productions a later date than that of the first.

These exceptional examples have drawn us far away from objects piques and poses d'or, which collectors can easily meet with, and which form the basis of all works in this style. We shall not speak here of the boxes and snuffboxes which we shall have to notice further on; but we would point to the jewel caskets, the etuis, the note-books, the ring-boxes and all that fanciful jewellery {bijouterie de fanlaisie) which, at all times, has made the glory of Parisian industry, and, in the eighteenth century, the reputation and the fortune of Granchez, the fortunate proprietor of the Peiit-Dunquerque.