Cameo brooch (pinchbeck?)

This is for sale at auction, so only photo we have.

Metal unmarked.

What do you think of it?

 

Lovely. @Bronwen will tell you all about it.
I wonder what the connection between the Phrygian hat with shell and the volcano (Vesuvius?) is.
You did notice some granules are missing?

 

Wow it's very lovely!

 

The helmet shell cameo is very well cut, also quite modern. That is the Bay of Naples, sort of, with a smoking Vesuvius in the background. Figure in the foreground, with the scallop shells, is probably meant to be a sea goddess, although the Phrygian cap is a weird choice. Believe it is hand, not mechanically, cut.

Setting might be gold filled, but don't think pinchbeck has been used in a good long while. It is quite pretty, think probably also Italian, like the cameo. AJ pointed out the missing ornamentation. Possible that in a way this is a good sign: that the metal is very soft & more likely to be higher fineness gold. Most Italian gold jewellery I come across is 18K. Really can't say anything definitive about the metal. You pays your money & ...

I don't collect modern pieces, & many I find too cartoonish, no matter how well cut. I could definitely go for this one at the right price. Conceivable it is signed on the back, no guarantees.

 

Also a flower in that same stretch. [Edit: No, wrong, just some of the granules.] I'm liking it for gold.

 

Wow!!! It looks very nice and well done....Nice and clean!

 

Modern Italian cameos rarely follow the old conventions for the use of 'attributes' to identify figures; they freely mix and match. The Phrygian cap is usually seen on Paris (who abducted Helen), Perseus or the female personification of Liberty. Sometimes it simply indicates the figure is a shepherd. Here, artist's liberty. There is a fantastical, almost art nouveau sensibility to many of them.

 

I'm liking it less for gold if that means it is not marked anywhere at all. Color is very good though, & wire work very delicate, not clunky as base metal tends to be.

Annoying not to be able to see the back, makes it very hard to date. Definitely 20th century. The more I look, the more I think earlier in the century rather than later, from the first wave of the modern style.

 

Without consideration of date, I'd think it had something to do with Italian unification.

Debora

 

Maybe. Not sure the Kingdom of Naples felt liberated.

 

Hi,
I was always told that if the nose is like a ski jump avoid it. Also if it has a pony tail avoid. That is the first things I look at when viewing a cameo. Just something that always jumps into mind. I do not know if it is true but was always told they were signs of new stuff.
greg

 

I call it the nose rule: the smaller & more upturned, the newer. The hair rule is: the cameo cannot be older than the time when the hairstyle came into fashion. This cameist had not yet succumbed to the trend toward perky little noses. The nose is part of what leads me to place it earlier in the century.

 

I am reading the replies with gratitude, and learning as I do!