Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

We need a few of these around these to pass out to folks on this thread lol!

 

Hi Bronwen,
That cameo of Queen Victoria just makes me want to start buying cameos again. I do not care if it is damaged. I really really love that one.
greg

 

I love it, too!
I’ve been private messaging with Bronwen for advice on it.

 

Showing off my most recent acquisition: a large and fancy depiction of Athena. I simply love the rich coloring of the shell that the carver used! The detail is stunning, right down to the textures on the shield and the garment. I’ve been over it back and front with a fine tooth comb (AKA loupe) but no signature found. I am a happy and satisfied buyer.

 

@bluumz Strange ponytail girl...
Wow!
B E A U T I F U L in all ways, this is a masterpiece
Congrats for buying it

 

It's streets ahead of the other cameos in my small, but growing, collection. And it was a very reasonable price.

 

Fabulous!

 

That is gorgeous!

Reminds me, though, that once I purchased a cameo of that design from a website that sells cameos (not eBay). When it arrived I realized that the shell's surface had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life and all of the natural glow/patina on the shell was gone (except around the edges near the mount where they missed scrubbing it all off). It had a very eerie flat/matte surface. Instead of asserting to the seller that this was unacceptable I said nothing. Kept it for several years, but it made me ill even to look at it. Finally got rid of it by throwing it away.

This design always reminds me of that experience. Years later, about a year ago, I finally bought a smaller one of that design, in a plainer mount. I haven't worn it, but it helped to exorcise the demons.

 

How disappointing. Glad the demons have been exorcised!

I'm wondering whether my new cameo is actually Ares, not Athena? The shield does not appear to be the aegis and there's not a snake in sight.

 

Here is a pic of the one I recently bought! Hoping the photo is clear enough. I also don't know which person this is, although maybe has been identified somewhere in this very long discussion thread? The one posted by @bluumz is much better, but I like this one also.

 

Romeo and Juliet? That would be my first guess at least.

 

I hadn't even thought of that, I think you may be right.

 

Those cameos are gorgeous- they both feature dragons... what deity had dragons?

 

I googled Ares cameos....many feature a dragon on his helmet.

 

R&J are possible, although engravers also found inspiration in sources such as The Faerie Queene & Orlando Furioso. Without other clues in the composition, it can be hard to know, unless a primary source of the image can be found. (Teasing @Jivvy with that.)

The pose is reminiscent of Canova's Venus & Mars:

https://www.rct.uk/collection/2038/mars-and-venus



The Met has a rock crystal engraving by Beltrami of Romeo saying farewell & slipping back out the window, while Nurse looks on in the background:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/707475

 

The satyr-faced helmet & 'scaled' armor are hers, as are a number of other attributes. The sea monster is not really proper to her, but later cutters did not adhere as closely to convention as did their predecessors. When cutters tried to include too many in one piece, the result was rather chaotic.

It really belongs to Achilles, although how it came to be so is a bit unclear.

See Tassie impressions 9198 & 9199 + 15517:

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/gems/tassie/default.htm



The Luigi Rosi cameo in the British Museum is misidentified as Mars:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/resea...spx?assetId=463661001&objectId=63102&partId=1

 

I've already been looking. I think he's too old for Romeo, but the main thing I've been thinking is, "wow, clothing choices that make the 1980s look good."

 

$385???
(And only a 10K ring!)

 

The kindest word for it is 'aspirational'.