Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I went and took a look. You have one almost dead center identified as George III; I think it's actually George IV, his son. I doubt the elder George would have shown himself wearing a laurel wreath, and I don't think he was ever that chubby. Prinny however was another matter entirely.

https://www.artfund.org/supporting-.../cameo-portrait-of-george-iv-as-prince-regent

 

Can you help me locate it relative to the MOP Wellington? The layout on your screen & mine may not be quite the same. I'm seeing one of George III & one of the Prince Regent, both by Pistrucci, each man wearing a fillet, no laurel wreaths. For George III in a laurel wreath, Pistrucci's preparation for a coin:

https://blog.royalmint.com/benedetto-pistrucci-royal-mint-engraver/



Will add this one to the board as well.

 

I was wondering about that.

 

What are the odds the bidder who won this for almost 163 GBP (about 213 USD) thought they were picking up a great bargain, even though seller correctly IDed it as faux:

 

I think you may actually have it right on second look. I never knew George III got that ... round...
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/163396292714883936/

 

They looked a lot alike in middle age, but IV had that wild hair, which I have read was a wig.

 

I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

 

Shouldn't have thrown stones at the seller's photos until I was sure I wasn't living in a Pyrex house myself. Have had a terrible time trying to photograph her. One of the less bad pix:

She is indeed hardstone, & the overall look of the metal parts is better than pix conveyed. Inner bezel probably not gold, which is common.

Still haven't been able to get a firm ID. May mean I'm wrong about its being Athena, since length of hair on right hand figure is not clear. The left hand figure really has to be either Socrates or a satyr (Socrates was said to look like one), & that should find the image, even if it's not Athena, but...

 

I'm mostly just really excited that I got one right.

 

lp;'/ (Gilligan)

They describe this as Athena with a satyr-faced helmet, but clearly not.
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/43F63345-C4A1-4F40-BFCD-3B34C730B9AF

And this one as a maenad & satyr:



http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/6ED96671-DA97-484D-8B80-D4D1C2B0F366

You can see how this one could be reworked to turn the bowl of the helmet into the philosopher's bald pate:



http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/7EC71374-C485-4BC7-A8E9-E73EA4D5A734

 

It seems very sad to me that this has become just more eBay merch, when someone must have loved this child very much:

 

Agree... how adorable and unusual he is!

 

For most of us, there will come a time when there's no one left who remembers us.

Considering how many of us will end up in landfills, might be nice to be bought by someone happy to have us.

 

I knew it was a fine piece!
Good catch, Bronwen

 

I found among my mother's things a small collection of vintage photographs, which she had no doubt bought on the assurance that they were collectable. Lots of sepia children, etc. At some point it hit me that they were all just people's family photos, no different, other than in age, from the ones in the couple of albums I have, filled mostly with pix of me as a baby & young child. Will probably just end up in a landfill, as there is no one to leave them to who would want them, or those black & white prints with deckled edges will seem so quaint to a collector.

It's conceivable someone got rid of the cameo because cameos are just so old fashioned & they didn't realize it is a portrait (a very well cut portrait) of a toddler who is probably a forebear of theirs. That happened in the case of one cameo in my collection. It had come down to a male descendant of a prominent Jewish banking family, most of whom fled Berlin ahead of the Nazis. One sister stayed behind, but committed suicide when she believed she was soon to be arrested. From the one photo that shows the 3 sisters together, I think the cameo is a portrait of the sister who stayed behind. Seller noted, but did not understand, the name engraved at the truncation of the bust. It is signed by Rudolph Otto, who did gem & medal engraving for the imperial court in Berlin.



The way it looked at time of sale may be part of why they did not appreciate value:

 

Merci, ma chère. I don't have any knowledge that is power, but I do have some that will be profitable someday.

 

Interesting to be able to relate a photo to an actual cameo! (Wouldn't it be sweet if we could have a photo of Athena...)
And the story attached to it!
No doubt the look before cleaning was... unappealing for a good bid

 

It's possible I think the cameo resembles this particular sister only because she is the only one of 3 that is shown in profile. But since the cameo ended up in the US after first traveling with the family to South America, it makes sense to me that they would take along this durable portrait of the sister they would never see again. I imagine they could not take much, so chose carefully.



Can't recall now if it was an uncontested auction or buy it now, just remember the price was absurdly low. This is the only other Otto cameo I have seen on the market:

https://antiquecameos.net/cameos/cameo-of-princess-victoria96617273

Much more impressive for story & as a piece of jewellery but I think my cameo is better. Mine is in a little brass easel frame, so maybe sat on desk of husband. If the sitter is who I think she is, she was married to this man, who had already died when the family were forced to flee:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Arons

 

Wow where have I been to have missed this Cameo post.
Some Fantastic stuff pictured and everyone should have one, which usually leads to two,etc...
I'm not sure what the draw is but I've always had a thing for wanting a cameo (lady in pink with gold)
After searching a bit years ago for one to give to the girlfriend I came across a nice one.


IF I recall it came from an estate sale back east and was around $75.
Here is the fun part....
There was such a fiasco with paying for the item that I almost didn't get it.
Evidently my money wasn't good enough and my parents had to go get a USPS postal money order.
That money order was on a usps truck that turned over in a desert wind storm in route and went missing so another one had to be sent...
When it finally arrived it was sent to my parents house instead of mine, my mom had forgotten and was trying to figure out when and where she picked it up from.
It came in a monogrammed burgandy velvet cloth bag.
A few weeks later my mother was cleaning up, swept the kitchen floor instead of vacuuming and in a dust pan was a 1ct European Cut Diamond.
We could only GUESS that it was in the bottom of the bag as she opened it up at the kitchen table.
I didn't get to keep the diamond, my mother called dibs.

 

This one I'd really love to know more about.
I was shopping ebay 20 plus years ago, doing a search for (300 years old)
Ended up finding this one in the UK for cheap.
I even got combined shipping with an 18k gold bracelet.
Seems to be bone and gold toned.