Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

It's rare, but I have seen it from time to time. I think it's a great way to salvage a beautiful cameo. Just wish there was a way to do it without the prongs showing.

This one of mine is a little different. It's a seriously manly cameo, now set in a heavy silver mount with shards of background shell left attached.

 

Do you generally find better deals with auctioneers?

 

No, only once. Usually end up over paying. This Dionysus is the exception. Auction house described it as Celluloid. This was before we were all sent to stay in our rooms, so prospective bidders had the opportunity to see in person & maybe handle it. True, the jet frame is broken & badly glued, but the ivory wine god is untouched:



Think in total it was around $75 when all the fees & shipping were paid. You have to bear in mind when bidding that you will probably end up paying twice the hammer price.

 

I guess I'll stick to eBay/Etsy haha. I guess sometimes people don't know what they are selling and you might get lucky, once you know what to look for

 

EBay puts the expense of selling on the seller. Auction houses put it on both sellers & buyers.

 

Oh yeah, I saw this one too and was like .. it wasn't cheap either lmao

 

Uh, I like helmet shell cameos because of the contrast between the carved part and the background, but this conch shell lady is actually pretty nice!

 

Yes, she is very pretty. The goddess Ceres/Demeter. The settings I have seen with this construction have held the shell only at the cardinal points. This one is unusual in holding it at 6 points.

I like conch shell cameos very well. They don't provide the contrast, but do provide a thicker piece of material, allowing for good relief:

 

Oh that one looks nice! I like that it is basically like a little sculpture

 

It looks like this on the back

 

The ones I usually see, with 4 points, are made very simply with 2 metal strips crisscrossed on the back. This one is a cut above.

 

When looking at the side of it, you can see how the pink and white part are kind of "mixing" together at the base. I am guessing that is an indication that it's a real carving

 

I have a small one with four points. Love seeing the six-pointed one.

 

It's a little different than you describe it, the pink & white layers are separate & do not blend together. The mollusk makes the pink layer (or in the case of helmet shell, the orange layer) to wear next to its soft body; it is smooth, like enamel. The white layer forms the exterior of the shell. This layer has a matte quality unless it is polished.

What we see in this example is that the artisan cut his figure down into the pink layer instead of trying to confine it strictly to the white. You see the same thing a lot when you look at hardstone cameos from the edge.

 

This is what I mean when I say the cameo market has become wonky & unpredictable. In both cases the hardstone cameo is signed by a known 19th century engraver. Auction houses show but do not mention the signature.

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/gold-black-sardonyx-cameo-pin-4334-c-D9F4776829

Signed by Filippo Vergé, sold for 1,200 USD. Subject is from a sculpture that was known as Clytie at that time.



Two days later:

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...mail&utm_campaign=INVreminder&utm_content=lot

Signed Filippo Tignani, sold for 475 USD. Subject is the Second Hour of the Night from the series known as the Hours of Raphael.



Think this second one would have done better if the consignor had sold it on eBay.

Tignani & Filippo Vergé (there was also an older, more skilled, Antonio Vergé) were contemporaries & of comparable skill level. Like I said, wonky.

 

@Bronwen I see a lot of shell cameos being described as "Carnelian shell or Sardonyx shell". Is this an accepted way to describe shell cameo colors, or is it an ebay made up description like "Harvey era"? Just wondering

 

Both are accepted usage, if misleading. I wanted to show you, but can't make the photo both legible & small enough to download, but it was a page from a 1924 jewellery catalogue, describing items as pink shell cameos or carnelian shell cameos.

 

A HAPPY HAPPENSTANCE​

I do not know why, there is no relationship to the message, but a contact in Italy sent back some photos of a cameo I sent her a very long time ago. I was still pretty new to the cameo world at that time, so did not recognize this figure. My friend IDed it for me as Fortuna, from a gem by Giovanni Pichler. I also sent her several pics of the back, trying to show the very lightly incised signature. I did not recognize it then, nor did she, but from working with others on this site, I do now.



We never did figure out if the first initial is T or J, but the cameo is by Mouhé, presumably earlier work. I have shown some of his mature work elsewhere in this thread, for example : CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

 

Thank you very much Bronwen, that helps

 

Well, I bought this cameo as a project and its setting is in a really rough shape. (Someone tried to fix the catch with lead solder and it ate into the gold in some spots , so yeah. Well, according to the hallmarks, it was made in 1864 (Birmingham) (someone correct me if I am wrong!) and it seems like the cameo was collecting all kinds of shmoo since then. Well, I removed the cameo from the setting, cleaned it up, and she looks quite pretty now . Going to give the setting a bath in hydrochloric acid to dissolve the lead, clean it up, and then resolder everything properly. As for the chipped area, probably going to file some of it down and smoothen it out before I reset the cameo. I don't really want to change too much since its so old, but the bezel is quite large so there is a lot to work with, thankfully. I think it'll be great in the end .