Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I did find find them on another of the silver sites, but seemed to me the lack of Limited in the mark ruled them out. Why are there so many more resources for silver marks than for gold? Sometimes you luck out, but so often, nada. Thanks for giving it a try.

 

Stumbled across this item in a past auction of Christie's & was a bit stunned by their description of the cameo subject.

AN ANTIQUE AGATE, DIAMOND AND ENAMEL CAMEO BROOCH
Centering upon a carved agate double cameo depicting a woman in profile and a man with flowing hair holding a feather, within an old mine-cut diamond and guilloché green enamel cushion-shaped surround with gold foliate detail, mounted in 18k gold, circa 1820, with French assay mark



What do you see?








Now that you've decided, see:

https://cameotimes.com/index.php/profiles-1/mortals/hercules/hercules-alone

 

That's what I thought! Nice article. Thanks for writing it.

 

I try for informative, illustrated & a little humor. When people look at all, think they mainly just look at pictures & rarely read the text. Oh well. Writing helps me consolidate my knowledge. (And lets me go back to see what I knew when I forget.)

 

We've talked about teeth on cameos. Kind of works for this amazing Medusa by Morelli.

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/12064/lot/17/

 

I see you're selling her. She was certainly one of the more lively topics on this thread. Good luck.

 

Show and tell!
I just acquired this bloodstone intaglio. I suspect it used to be a watch fob, but I'm not 100%. The metal tests 14k.

 

Very nice. I love bloodstone (also known as heliotrope) & have a few pieces in it. One is along the lines of yours except oval, with the goddess Ceres, in what I think is a gilt mount, not solid gold. It would also have been meant for a fob.

I have always suspected there was an iconography that identifies these figures done in what I think of as an archaic style, but have never found any discussion of it or key to the cast of characters. The crest on the helmet may once have told the viewer exactly who this guy is but I can't 'read' him. Usually they are heroes from the Iliad. One that I have thoughtfully has the name Ajax on it in Greek, otherwise I never would have guessed.

 

Ah, Bronwen...I was hoping you would be able to pinpoint who this character is! You have such vast knowledge about these things! It would be fun to know. He was hard to photograph. The stone is slightly convex, and cell phone cameras are quite lacking. He has tiny red specks throughout, but it's hard to show in photos.

 

@Bronwen, do you think it is European or American?

 

Afraid I am failing you completely on this one. It's such a vast field, I'll never stop learning. My focus has mainly been on cameos from the Victorian era. When my interest was first developing, I did not look at intaglios at all, nor at anything said to be earlier than Georgian. Your piece would be 'from the antique', meaning copied from a gem dating to what we call antiquity. The farther away from neoclassical art, the less I know.

The way the facial features are rendered is no doubt characteristic of a particular time period in the history of engraved gems & an expert in the engraved gems of antiquity, such as Sir John Boardman, could probably tell you immediately when it was. However, even institutions like the Beazley Archive frequently have to label pieces like this as 'Warrior wearing helmet', sometimes with a speculative ID, & leave it at that. I suspect there was a convention for how these heroes were portrayed, with distinctive helmet crests, beard/no beard & any weapon below adding up to a specific ID. I don't know the code. Admittedly, it is not something I have spent a lot of time on. I have massive reference books that might enlighten me if I spent time going through them page by page. Most of these photos are not very good, but you will get the idea of the variations. First is my Ajax.



Here's another: http://www.ebay.com/itm/132910670689

The other part of your question is one for a jewellery historian. All in all, I would have to guess, based on construction & condition of the ones I see, that they date late in the period when there was still any market for fobs. Engraved gems seem never to have become the rage in the US they once were in Britain & Europe, but these date later than that & intaglios, particularly signet rings, became standard in the range of American gents' jewellery. Very often cameos & intaglios were made in one place, mounted in another, so could be an American setting with an imported stone. I have yet to see evidence that Italian artisans were engraving these. My best shot is that they are American or British.

A long winded reply with no firm conclusions, alas. At moments like this I really miss @Jivvy who probably would have become intrigued & started running down who these guys are.

 

Thank you so much for all the information.
I was thinking 1890-1910, but origin was up in the air.
I'm worried now that this may be the start of a small collection....
I never stop at one, I must have at least 3 of anything that interests me!

 

Being a dedicated enabler, I'm not saying anything other than you're welcome.

 

In the words of the prophet: have at! (especially if it's one of my Ebay listings)

 

@Bronwen , I recall that you are somewhat interested in cameos that show up in old photographs. This cabinet card photo from about 1890 is a portrait of a woman wearing a huge cameo at her neck. I cropped the photo to try to get better detail. This was scanned at 600 dpi.



Here's the whole image. No photographer credit on the card.

 

@Figtree3, your post reminded me of this fabulous cameo:

 

Thank you. Assuming you don't mind if I add your pix to my file of such images? Great that the cameo is so visible. I've mostly stopped buying photos since for my purposes the seller's photos are usually adequate, but today did receive my first ever tintype of, according to seller, a Pompous Bourgeois Woman w/ Large Cameo Brooch. The cameo is not as large or as interesting as the one your lady wears. Your lady's cameo looks like it might be Venus trying to govern some cupids.

Imagine going through the day with one of these tight, high collars & a brooch to jab you if you lowered your chin?

 

I feel like we've seen this cameo in the thread before, but maybe not. Quite a production. Suspect it is 20th century as the elements are from the traditional vocabulary but are combined in a way that doesn't correspond to any episode from mythology I can think of, something you see in cameos made after their real heyday. Imagine cutters began to lose knowledge of the stories & conventions while having gained knowledge of what sells. Also, post-WWI was a time of liberation, so maybe they also felt free to express their own visions & fantasies. There are images of Zeus, in the form of an eagle (or the eagle who serves Zeus) carrying someone off, but the someone is usually Ganymede.

 

No, I don't mind at all!

 

People do have good imaginations, don't they?