John Miller Gray

“ In addition to his impressions from antique gems, Tassie executed many large profile medallion portraits of his contemporaries, and these form the most original and definitely artistic class of his works. They were modelled in wax from the life or from drawings done from the life, and—when this was impossible—from other authentic sources. ”

“ When his training was completed he visited Dublin in search of commissions, and there became acquainted with Dr Quin, who had been experimenting, as an amateur, in imitating antique engraved gems in coloured pastes. He engaged Tassie as an assistant, and together they perfected the discovery of a vitreous paste composition, styled "enamel," a substance admirably adapted, by its hardness and beauty of texture, for the formation of gems and medallions. ”

“ He died at Kensington on the 26th of October 1860, and bequeathed to the Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh, an extensive and valuable collection of casts and medallions by his uncle and himself, along with portraits of James Tassie and his wife by David Allan, and a series of water-colour studies by George Sanders from pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools. ”