Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I hope you got it for a better price because it looked so bad?

 

I beg your pardon, do I correctly get that it is not what the seller claims it is? For my amateurish eye it does not look like angel skin coral but I have very little knowledge.

 

@Bronwen can explain the difference. And she has explained previously in this thread. It might be shell-- conch shell, I think?

My comment with "Yikes" was an exclamation about the the words that were used incorrectly. In English, "angels skin corral" could mean a corral (fence enclosure) made of the skin of angels. There are other possible interpretations for the misspellings, but I will leave it at that for now.

And the definition of "Yikes" is: "expressing shock and alarm, often for humorous effect."

 

Thank you, Figtree3, now I understand what you mean I could not figure out where the humour was, because I am not native. Actually it seems to me that the seller is also not a native speaker and thus does not know that there is a word "corral" with quite different meaning than "coral". I didn't know either, until now Thanks again!
No need to make Bronwen explain again and again, it could be rather boring and annoying for her, I can go back and see the explanation. I think I read it, though.

P.S. Now reading my previous post, I start wondering if it sounds polite enough. My sincere apology, if not, it was not intentional. When I studied eons ago, "I beg your pardon" was presented to me as a polite excuse but it might have changed since then.

 

Yes, it does sound polite enough. "I beg your pardon" is usually very polite, if it is expressed sincerely.

In some situations people use that phrase to indicate that they think the other person was not being polite. So it can sometimes be an impolite phrase itself. But that was not the situation here. You expressed it very well.

 

I beg your pardon.....is still quite formal....
Pardon me.....is less formal in conversation...

still, a lot of times it's more how someone says it.....but when typing....we don't get to hear anyones tome of voice..

 

Figtree3 and komokwa, thank you for your patience to explain!
It is sometimes difficult for me to think of a more informal phrase as I was taught English by non-natives who took their knowledge not from the real life but from old books. And it was long ago, and the language has developed further since then.
Now I will try to memorise "pardon me" as an informal substitute

Komo (hope you don't mind calling you that informal), I agree that the non-verbal communication (tone, gestures, posture of body) is as important as the verbal one.

Figtree3, thank you for encouraging me, appreciate it!

My general impression is that this forum has gathered a lot of very nice people who are not only experts in antiques but are also polite and helpful, and kind. Very pleasant place to be, respect to you, antiquers!

 

It is possible the seller didn't know corral is not coral, or they just misspelled it.

I did a quick ebay search in the jewelry category for "corral" and got 189 hits. I also searched for "dimond" and got 1,200 hits. I've seen broach for brooch and - of all things - bowel for bowl

I regularly search for "turquiose" and "torquoise", searching for misspellings could become a full time job!

 

don't mind at all..........

 

That's why she wrote this:

https://cameotimes.com/index.php/reference/materials-guide?start=1

It does not take long to train your eye to recognize the difference in the shades of pink.

When it comes to coral/corral, since both are valid English words, spell check will not catch the error. Some people don't do any other proofreading. A bit surprised at 'dimond', which is not an English word.

Love the discursion into Miss Manners. Thank you, @IvaPan for your concern with 'tone of voice' in your posts. We've had a recent example of how outright aggression sounds. It's the way intention can be misunderstood in a written message that sometimes leads to grief. When in doubt, the 'smile' emoji never hurts.

 

Hard to know about this. The lot was not uncontested & was not cheap, but it was the first interesting thing I could vaguely afford that I had seen in a long time. The lot was actually 2 cameos, described by the auction house as:

Large 19thC Oval Cameo depicting a man and
woman in yellow metal mount with safety chain
6cm x 5cm and a 19thC Oval Three graces cameo
5cm x 4cm



I would not have been interested in the Shakespeare & his Muse cameo on its own. And I have no idea how anyone could have seen the other cameo as depicting the Three Graces. They made no representation about the metal of the genii cameo, but seems to be gold: finely wrought & not a speck of oxidation.

 

I keep saying that Predictive Typing will be the death of us all, or at least of correct word usage. The phone/tablet will also sometimes in-correct a word to what it is the bot thinks the writer meant. For me it's wrong more often than not, and I have to correct it two or three times before it gets the idea. And if a person is not a native speaker, the repeated mis-correction would make life difficult.

 

Bronwen, thank you for showing me the text about differences between shell and coral, very exhaustive and informative!
I have been wondering for a long time about a beaded necklace which looks very much as one of your shell examples, now I know

 

Absolutely agree! Even in my own language I have issues with it, not to mention other languages.

 

Yes, when I read the description I laughed!

 

Hello all!

I've always been drawn to cameos but never had the money (or foremother's inheritance) to own any. This past year I finally had a place in my career to be able to indulge my love of art and history, in wearable form. I took some time to find the first but I adore her. 14k mount, shell, unsigned, from the Edwardian period I am assuming.





By chance soon after, I browsed the British Museum's collection and found a twin so that I could put a name and source inspiration to her. Having the name of "Clytie" led me to Cameo Times and to @Bronwen 's own Clyties featured on this thread.

So in a bit of a love letter, I have to thank Bronwen for her immense scholarship on the subject of cameos. Not knowing Cameo Times was her work, I eagerly read everything and used it to help me find a few other cameos for my small collection. Feeling sad that there are few in my life that can appreciate the art form, I searched for this thread again and read all 280+ pages. I've learned SO MUCH from Bronwen and the people here in this thread. Thank you so much everyone! I have a background in art and history, so getting to read everyone's work in this thread over the last 5 years has been a real treat better than any book on the subject.

I'll post my other pieces to this thread in future to add to the record and get the opinions of the experts here. I figure the more in it, the higher the chances that others find this wealth of knowledge as I did.

 

A big welcome & aw shucks thank you, Mirana. It is so very good to hear that Cameo Times actually sometimes reaches people who find value in it. (You might want to register: it's free; the info requested is mostly voluntary & never shared with any other entity; does not result in a deluge of junk mail. This will give you access to additional cameo subjects that are less common. If you do sign up, let me know, here or in a private message, that you have, so I don't lose you in the flood of spam registrations the site gets.)

Your Clytie is just gorgeous. Thank you for sharing her with us. It never ceases to amaze me when such work is left unsigned. Sure wouldn't happen now. I think there's a fair possibility the cameo was cut some decades before it was mounted. There's a bit of a disconnect between the quality & subject matter of the carving & the 20th century findings, which do not look like replacements.

Since my Clyties came up, in addition to the 2 by Luigi Rosi, I also have one that is unsigned, but in a nice mount:

 

& she loves to make a Cameo. appearance !