Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Those are gorgeous! This one is cold to the touch, like shell, so I just assumed. There are a few celluloid (I think) cameos which I didn't photograph and they feel room temperature.

I have a lot to learn.

 

Hi,
Looks like a slice of malachite. One of my favorite stones.
greg

 

The face however is the dreaded ivory.

But speaking of malachite .... I think Skinner blew it on this jewelry lot - there's a carved malachite cameo in there but you can barely see the face, and the estimate is bargain city for what's in there.
https://skinnerlive.auctionserver.n...&xclosed=no&sortlot=price&sorthighlow=lowhigh

 

I thought as much when it arrived. I’m starting to catch on how omission is a way many people get around unloading pieces that have problematic qualities like this one.

I loved the malachite. It wasn’t until I compared it to the ivory one that my lightbulb came on but I figured it was worth asking y’alls opinion.

 

It's one of those things. Companies with the I-word in stock either have to sit on it, donate it, or sell it without attribution and hope no one rats them out.

 

Surely. Ironic how I buy one assuming it’s ivory and end up with another in close proximity.

Ah well. I’ll enjoy her just the same and hope my kids figure out what to do with it when I’m gone. A shame as I had hoped to be incorrect and the carving be bone. The malachite is gorgeous and the marcasite sets off very nicely against it.

 

I have a friend who likes ivory and takes it out of my hair at cost. I do have one or two pieces I'm keeping that I'm not going to worry about.

 

I've stayed out of this because I really can't tell what I'm looking at. Malachite & ivory? Malachite glass & shell? This box is glass:



It's an unusual piece. I'm leaning to real malachite & shell. The figure is compact enough that it would have been possible to chip away all the surrounding brown background, no tousled tresses to deal with. Would like to see it clean & also a view taken from the edge. Careful about cleaning, it could come apart.

 

@Bronwen I’ve given her a quick bath and some of the filth came off but not all. I’m worried about weakness in whatever adhesive was used to adhere the carved piece to the back so I didn’t risk prolonged contact with water and soap.

I’m surprised by how hard the features are to capture not matter what lighting I’m in.

 

A bit overexposed, but I think the next to last pic shows Shreger lines.

 

It does. She is ivory. I'm getting an Asian feel off her but can't explain why. Just the carving, not the whole thing.

 

I’m messing with my iPhone settings... don’t know why all my pictures are overexposed.

 

I think it's hard for cameras to deal with the dark background (malachite) and the light foreground (Ivory).

 

Another find today. I think this is glass, it certainly feels like it. Frame looks like brass maybe? I polished it up a bit. This one also has no marks anywhere of any kind. The gentleman who sold her to me couldn’t tell me a single thing. His daughter collected them and was getting rid of some of them for whatever reason.

 

Yes, glass, & probably gilt brass. You can usually smell brass.

 

I bought this cameo quite a long time ago online.
It was advertised as a lava cameo set in 14k.

My question is if later "lava" cameos like this one (which I think is from the first quarter of the 20th century ?) are made from a composite material and formed in a mould rather than actually being carved?

For some reason the picture of the back is showing first.

Argh, sorry I can't seem to fix this.

 

The basic answer is yes, this has been & continues to be done. It is a topic I wish I knew more about, i.e., when were cameos of this type first on the market?; how to know for sure a cameo is molded vs. carved? It is really clear with some hand carved pieces; the degree of undercutting could not be achieved with a mold. And some cameos are so flat, with such rounded lines, you have to think a mold was involved. And then there are pieces like your lovely bacchante, which are somewhere on the line between. My best thought is molded with hand touches added after, primarily with a drill. Scognamiglio makes molded 'lava stone' cameos, which I suspect are pulverized volcanic ash mixed with resin.

For some pix of other lava pieces:

https://www.cameotimes.com/index.php/reference/materials-guide?start=3

 

Thanks Bronwen.

 

Which parts of this description are probably correct & which not:

A antique Brooch all a rose gold TONE probably Pinchbeck the front as a 3d effect of a lady made of a hard stone the back is pressed flowers the brooch is able to swivel all the way around and fastens with a c-clasp safety chain attached

 

Fun! I'll take a stab over my first cuppa this morning.

I'm not seeing hardstone.
Not pinchbeck. That term is so overused it drives me crazy. Rolled gold perhaps?
Those pressed flowers look strange, not sure what is going on there?
Can't see the clasp so not sure if it is in fact a c clasp.