Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Not everyone does this successfully:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antonio_corradini,_tuccia_(la_velata).JPG


For some cameo Tuccias:

https://cameotimes.com/index.php/profiles-1/mortals/tuccia-sieve

 

Bronwen, you are correct. Both backs were added at a later date.

 

Here's your Hermes:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/163396292722238426

This was the first time I've bothered to find out what the feature 'Add Alt Text' is. Turns out to be a way to add a visual description for those using a screen reader. Seems like a nice thing to do, so will keep on with it going forward.

 

Hi @Bronwen, Not sure if I am doing something wrong, but I get an error message saying I must log in first when I try to use this link.

 

No, nothing wrong. Some content is reserved for registered users. Registration is free & you'll only rarely get an e-mail from the site. Info is not shared with anyone else. Just gives me a sense of who the serious users are. Registration gives you access to everything that's there. There's a glitch in the registration process you'll be warned about. It can't be finalized automatically; I have to do it.

 

Okay!! Thanks for letting me know. I will register.

 

Here is an intriguing item up for auction today. The description below from the auction house is quite informative.

Description
17-18th C Carved Portrait Scholastic Sculpture. Measure 14" X 8.5" X 2". Jan Hus, 1372-1415, sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as Iohannes Hus or Johannes Huss, was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the inspiration of Hussitism, a key predecessor to Protestantism, and a seminal figure in the Bohemian Reformation. Jerome of Prague 1379-1416, was a Czech scholastic philosopher, theologian, reformer, and professor. Jerome was one of the chief followers of Jan Hus and was burned for heresy at the Council of Constance.

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/17-18th-c-carved-portrait-scholastic-sculpture-82a45099bc

 

This cameo has been in my collection for years. It took me a while to figure out the subject. The cameo is after a painting in the south nave of the St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, Hungary. Painted by Gyula Benczúr, it is called, "St. Stephen offering the Crown to Mary". It is a symbolic scene where King Stephen, left without a successor after the death of his son, offers his country and crown to the Virgin Mary. Legend holds that Mary appeared to Stephen in a dream, promising to protect the young Hungarian Christian state. Stephen was the first King of Hungary and a convert to Christianity.

 

Yeah, right:
Medium
Bone

Est: $500 - $750
Sold: $1,850

 

Someone really wanted them...

 

I had not seen this one before. Wonder where it was cut? And if Italy, how did cutter come to know that image?

Isn't it immensely satisfying when you discover the primary image for a cameo? I have a whole folder of pix of cameo subjects I have yet to identify. The two of my own that came as the biggest Aha! moments after 2 or more years of searching off & on & following hints are La Speranza:



and Nero:

 

It is very satisfying. In fact, I found a primary image today for one of my cameos. I was really surprised and happy. I knew my cameo was of Apollo, but I didn't understand why there was a boat, the sea, and the box of apples was in the background.


Turns out that this is a relief at the base of a monument Thorvaldsen created to honor Lord Byron. It is titled "The Genius of Poetry".


The sea, ship and box of scrolls (not apples!) are explained in this excerpt from the museum:
"The tutelary spirit of poetry is playing a stringed instrument and at the same time placing his foot on the prow of a ship adorned with a sword, a reference to the warship which Byron had armed at his own expense in 1823 in order to join the Greeks in their struggle for freedom from the Turks. Behind the other foot can be seen a container full of scrolls, a reference to Byron’s poetical works."

Mystery solved!

 

That Nero cameo is awesome! Do you know who the carver was? It has an amazing amount of detail, including the figures flanking the lion's head on the helmet. What a find.

 

What a gorgeous piece. Always so surprising when such work isn't signed. The Genius does have Apollo's original lyre, made with a turtle shell. I could see they were scrolls but not sure I would have realized that was the prow of a ship; it would not be out of keeping for it to be a lamp of some sort. Another one I have not seen before. Thank you for showing it.

 

Before I found this place, I posted some things on Collectors Weekly, including Nero.

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/224523-one-mystery-solved

Unfortunately, since that post was made, the SKD has taken down their statuette of the Emperor Domitian & the links are dead. It was after stumbling into this photo from works that were in a special exhibition of lapidary work that I got the tip off that what I had been thinking of as The Barbarian might be a Caesar.


Emperor Domitian by Johann Bernhard Schwarze(n)burger

I had searched & searched for any other red on black cameos, finding very few, none of them Victorian. Also not having any luck searching for Attila, etc. Once I started looking at Roman emperors I found him very quickly. The head on Domitian is more like my Nero than anything else I have ever found. I have only the one full length photo, so the detail pic is all pixellated.



Obviously I can't say with any certainty that Nero is the work of the Schwarzeburger family, but engraved gems by German masters seem to have been overlooked almost entirely by the glyptics world. There must still be many out there, unidentified, misattributed. This is all the back of Nero has to tell:

 

Bronwen- I am intrigued by your cameo of Nero. It is amazing how you finally figured it out and the possible creator of your little piece of art. I did some searching and came up with a cameo in the V&A museum that is attributed to Schwarzeburger, with a few reservations. The information accompanying the cameo is interesting-V&A is not 100% sure if the cameo was carved in the 1500s or 1800s. The creases at the brow are also very similar to your Nero. Too bad there is not a picture of the back of the cameo so it could be compared to yours.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O110373/roman-emperor-cameo-johann-bernhard-schwarzeburger/

 

I saw this & wrote to Holly Trusted, with whom I'd had previous contact over the Ronca Psyche/Iris, showing her Nero & asking if they were sure about the date & country of origin of their piece. I only presented my evidence. I did not represent Nero as definitely being by Schwarzeburger, nor did I suggest she do anything other than reconsider whether their guy might also be German & of the same period. I did not expect she would attribute their emperor to S'burger.

Holly seems like a lovely woman & now appears to be semi-retired, but as senior curator of sculpture she had broad responsibilities & no doubt was just this side of frazzled much of the time. With both cameos she enthusiastically accepted what I had to say, making changes to their entries, without really removing the previous info. I'm afraid I've probably caused the description of this piece to be mangled for all time.

 

Maybe neither......?in mourning??

 

You should start another thread that is unknown cameo subjects. Maybe someone in this forum would be able to figure it out. I like sleuthing.

 

I was considering that. May just do so as to make the rest of you crazy along with me. (We need a cameo emoji.)