Featured Cameo, for Bronwen opinion!

I have no doubt she'll come out of kyratization looking every bit as good as her snazzier sisters already out there.

 

Thanks, on behalf of Ibrahim al Samarkandy and family.
(Maybe 'Omar' is actually a portrayal of someone's favourite Afghan camel driver.....)

Are you sure she is a she? She looks like a he to me. Jewellery was not unusual when portraying an 'exotic' gentleman.
But yes, could be the same materials as Kyra's. And very nice.

 

Can't tell you how many times I have pointed out to someone that their 'Trojan warrior' is wearing a strand of pearls & is the goddess Athena. A male figure, even one who is not 'exotic' may wear an earring, or a pendant on a long chain,but never a pearl choker. This is Henri III:

 

Wow! The Ebay one is a marvel, not cheap, but price is not so high... I think it is carved from one piece, see how the 3 colors mix on his shoulder on the right!
And, thanks for both being confident in the result of future kyratisation!

 

Male Blackamoors are often dressed in Indian attire, more often than African or European. A case of old-fashioned exotism.
They are portrayed with Indian Maharaja's turbans with frontal feather and jewellery. Maharani's don't wear a turban with frontal feather. Neither do Africans or Arabs.
Bhupinder Singh, the famous Maharaja of Patiala:


Maharaja Jagatjit Singh:


Blackamoor in turban with Indian Maharaja's frontal feather, and pearl necklace:

Could be a girl, but in that case a cross-dressing one.

 

For me it's another case of mixed signals. I do see points that seem consistent with what in cars used to be called a 'unitized body', but too many others on the other side of the scale. If I had to finger just one, I would say the rounded shoulders of the background slab: common with glass; never seen in stone. The matte look of the figure against the glossy sheen of the ground also jars me.

The eBay brooch is like 'Omar' in having the pin mounted to run vertically. Cameos in this shell do not turn up often. When they do, they all seem to be from this same time period. They are not always recognized as shell. The bearded man I tacked on to previous message is from a new catalog of a private European collection, where it is described as stone. I don't know why they seem to have had such a limited time of production, but suspect that they were one of the ways cameo cutters tried to keep up with growing popular demand by using more easily worked shell that could pass as stone when set. Another old trick was to cut using only the white layer, then either coating the back with something black, such as pitch, or mounting the cameo on slate. These are a couple of examples of the latter:

 

Ah, but a bit more than a choker, no? The English do not seem to have made much distinction among peoples with darker skin. Indians, whether Hindu or Muslim, Arabs, Africans, all 'black.' The word 'blackamoor' sums it up.

My great aunt Madge lived all her 90-some years in the little Iowa town of Mediapolis. On a visit there, she was telling my mother & me about the 2 little black girls who had been delivering the newspaper, how she had had to lend them some gloves in the winter because their hands were freezing. It was surprising to hear of a lone black family in this rural corner of the state. I was even more surprised to learn the new family in town were Vietnamese.

This is another one of mine. Shah Jahan & Mumtaz? Generic exotic couple?

 

Yes, the first one is wearing the famous Patiala necklace by Cartier as well. Some Maharajas certainly knew how to be decadent, and not just in their taste of jewellery.

Exactly. And not just the English, just about all Europeans. They were just fascinated by those 'strange' people and their 'strange' customs.

Very nice one, Bronwen. A mix of 'exotic' and European, the lady's hairstyle and his shirt are more European.
Do you know where it was made? If it is English, they could very well represent Shah Jahan and his lovely Mumtaz Mahal.

 

It is more likely to have been made in Italy, but does not mean it could not have been made to appeal to English tourists. doubt all the cameos of Shakespeare were made in his own country.

 

Josephine Baker did very well out of this!

 

She did. And spent much of her money helping others.

And then there was our very Dutch Margaretha Zelle, who was so inspired by her stay in Indonesia that she reinvented herself as 'Javanese dancer' Mata Hari:

She did not end so well.

 

/;'P) So I've heard.

 

An eBay seller in search of enlightenment:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/142539195593

 

This one http://www.ebay.com/itm/192324415288 and others in which the figure is dark brown instead of absolutely black look to me like they could be glass paste bonded together. The ones that resemble yours seem more clearly to be separate pieces that could not make such a seamless join.

 

Another of the shell ones.

 

Some earlier examples:

http://www.medieval-rings.com/rings/renaissance-blackamoor-cameo-ring-35225

http://wb.britishmuseum.org/MCN9979#1469229001

 

How interesting to see this technique! Really great to have you on the board, Bronwen , I enjoy getting clues for cameos Thank you!!!

 

In more ways than one.
Although I have been known to crave an opal non-cameo featuring Kawn Yin. Maybe they just mean there is going to be a cameo appearance of Guanyin, because I haven't seen her/him yet.

The leopard skin headband is worn by high-status Zulu men.

 

We'll never know if cutter was seeing spots or just showing off what could be done with the material, but I like that this one has not been all Europeanized, or not too much. That bit of drapery at the shoulder would look just as well on Apollo.

 

It is nice to have others with an interest to share with. There are not so many of us around. And so say the other residents of my house: