Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

This is from a 1915 catalogue:

 

You are most welcome

 

I do not know what to think of this. Lavishly set in 20th century mount. At first glance looks like it could be a Poniatowski gem. Then you look harder, particularly at the feet & the signature.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/ite..._20190821_A&utm_medium=email&utm_content=item

Here it is reversed, to make reading easier. First letter looks more like phi than any other Greek character. Assuming it is, are they funnin' me?

 

I can't look away from her face for long enough to get a good look at anything else.

 

Evidently he can't look at her.

 

How beautiful!

 

Thank you, ma'am. It's like it's its own magical world. The top shelf has a lot of glass & crystal that both reflects the light & allows it through to the next level. In addition to color & shape, another organizing principle is opacity.

I really need to redo it completely & years ago acquired some risers & other acrylic display gizmos so I can make better use of all the space between shelves. I need someone here while I work on it, to keep Gilligan terrified enough he'll stay in the closet & to grab Pontiac when she tries to help. Ideally someone who also will not try to tell me how I should do it. A massive job & too many decisions involved for this poor Libra.

 

Crowd sourcing a decision.

I don't need a single thing more. I do not need to spend a single dollar more. Given that I have this Michelini cameo



which is after this intaglio by Grew



do I need this?

 

Oh my, you don't want to ask me, I would say yes!

 

If you don't buy it, it will only go to someone who doesn't have the cameo.

And that just seems wrong.

 

Bunch of enablers around here. I'm leaning more toward than away.

Right now it's with someone who thinks it's St. George. But we know better:

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/cameos-show-tell-or-ask-answer.23493/page-38#post-439435

Post #759 & ff.

 

I remember the previous post, but ya know, "St George" is a way better guess than many a cameo seller has made about an unknown.

 

When my interest was first beginning to deepen, I thought St. George too. I have an unset shell version that looks very boyish. Called him George but never felt right. Pretty youthful for a hero of the Trojan War.

Pet peeve: when sellers have a cameo with a helmeted figure that has no other distinguishing features, they routinely call it a Trojan or a centurion. The Trojans lost that war! The majority of cameos with an identifiable warrior are of Greek heroes. Many 'Trojan' cameos are Athena. And some anonymous centurion? Huh?

 

The eternal question: why waste a mount like this on a cameo like that?

 

oh my!!

 

Page from a AC BECKEN catalogue (wholesaler). I have no way to verify the date, but this is reportedly from the 1962 edition.

Prototype?

 

Suspect not. Ponytails as the latest look for girls were already waning. The Ponytail Girl image has taken a different course from Headband Girl's. Although have seen HBG in endless presentations using glass & plastic, she always looks the same & I have never, ever seen her done by hand in a natural material. On the other hand, PG is variable in the exact lines, how the hair is arranged, what the nose is like etc., although recognizably the same basic image. And has been done by hand. This one surprised me most:



I do believe that is genuine lapis, not a glass imitation.

 

That's what I think every time I'm giving consideration to the ever more pressing need to do estate planning. Just cataloguing... Rich collectors of engraved gems hired someone to do it for them. I wish.

 

Classroom exercise for group discussion. If you saw this


EXQUISITE HIGH RELIEF ANTIQUE LAVA CAMEO BROOCH OR PENDANT 14kt

would you be inclined to take a better look? If you did, the thumbnail enlarged to this,



you saw these, among other photos,





and the only other info given was measurements - 1 inch by .75 inch 6.5 grams - what observations would you make? What conclusions would you come to? What else might you want to know from seller?

 

I'd want a good shot of the karat markings; from the front it looks like glass in a costume setting. From the back it looks like glass in possibly a legit setting and probable gold-filled.