Featured Cameo End of Semester Pop Quiz

For those of you with the courage of your convictions, and those of you who didn't vote but are still curious, I'm going to lay out the answer in segments, as a series of 'ask yourself, if you had seen this, would your answer have been different?' questions.

If you had seen the seller's description & asking price?

VINTAGE VICTORIAN WHITE CORAL ON ONYX CAMEO PENDANT BROOCH 10K GOLD

US $329.95

 

no

 

What if you had also seen this one?

 

???

 

I'd put em back to back.....& might be thinking it's glass....!!!

 

For good measure:

 

For those of you who observed that the hinge & clasp are later than Victorian, give yourself a point.

This hardstone piece, a similar type of figure, was probably cut in the 20th century. The multiple notations on the back probably indicate the production of a workshop rather than a single hand. (And all the white specks indicate a household ruled by cats.)



For the record, I have yet to see a cameo that was white coral, much less one that was mounted on a stone background. Half the cameos described as angel skin/pink coral are actually conch shell and, of those cut in a white material that did originate in the sea, all are shell.

 

The solid black one looks molded,but can't tell from the photo if it is glass or some type of plastic.

 

I have noticed your mentions of this earlier in the other thread. Although I'd already noticed the confusion of the angel skin coral and conch shell in my own cameo travels, I didn't know about the white shell part.

So what are you saying that the answer to the quiz is, @Bronwen ? I think we may have enough hints to know, but... clarity is great! (And maybe you weren't done posting the gradual roll out and then I'd be jumping the gun...)

 

Napoleonic headband girl! I'd bet the original on this thread is Czech glass too.

 

Well isn't she all over the place in artificial materials.

I hope you will do more of these! I may have made myself crazy, but I enjoyed it.

 

I'm inclined to some sort of early plastic on these, based on the way the findings are embedded, meant to look like jet. See also the maroon red one, which looks like someone did a hot needle test on the front.

Well, she's definitely not Victorian, white coral or any other hand carved substance. The look of the back, with that grainy look & slight depression, actually suggests more of a ceramic than glass, but the white figure looks to be glass. One thing to consider when assessing claims of a cameo's being made in 2 or more pieces is how well the materials said to be involved could be attached to each other; like with like is more common than mixed material.

Yep.

She soitainly is.

Then my work here is done.

 

Thanks! That was lots of fun.

I was assuming the piece belongs to you but now am thinking it doesn't, since you wrote

The comments sound as if you haven't had it in your hands.

 

No, & I don't intend to. It's still for sale. It was the seller's gross mischaracterization that made me think of proposing a quiz. The natural temptation to make cameos more valuable than they really are leads to silly stuff.

 

thank you @Bronwen
certainly fun and educational!!

 

Very pleased you proposed this. It is exactly what I did, only couldn't think of the right word. I gestalted C20 b/w glass. I've been lurking in the cameo show & tell and I'll hate myself if I'm wrong.

 

But we'll love you anyway.

 

I had the same feeling.

 

Didn't have a clue. Mostly look at that other thread for the pictures. (It's Playboy I read for the articles. )

 

In terms of creating a beautiful object that a woman would want to wear, this cameo fails miserably in my estimation. The face is poorly aligned with the top being closer to the rim than the bottom; the edge of the black substance is not uniformly pressed under the inner rim; the exterior design is unimaginative to say the least and the white section is too large in relation to the black making it lose its distinctive features in its overwhelming whiteness. So I voted 20th century black and white glass.