Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

And we will see it...when?

 

All three are interesting. I've occasionally had a message lost here as well. Except mine never reappeared, as I recall.

 

Was trying to add the quote from Chris, couldn't find a way to do it using the built in feature, so went back to copy & paste, except only way to go back was to go back a page, before the messages had been written. Well, when I have to struggle to get something right, I'm a lot less likely to make the same mistake again.

 

I'm not used to taking photos of cameos. This one is visible, but may be too small and blurry. Anyway, my first try for this thread.

This is a small cameo habille, I think. There is no necklace but the gem in the middle tests in the diamond range. The total size of this is 1-1/8 inches tall x 7/8 inches wide. That includes the entire pin.

The clasp has a 10K mark on it.



Here's the back. I resized it too small when sending from my phone. Another thing that I'm still getting accustomed to is resizing with my phone's tools!

Oh, and it's carved shell. What kind of shell?

 

Yep, she is en habillé. Think I prefer her without the usual chain, which really can make them look like they have a millstone around the neck. And lucky you, a genuine diamond?! They are often enough rhinestones.

The shell is the more orange variety of helmet shell, Cypreacassis rufa, the bullmouth helmet shell. Also called carnelian (or cornelian) shell for the color and cameo shell, for obvious reasons.

Mount looks very solid with an earlier type of safety clasp prone to opening on their own. Good thing there is the hinged swiveling bail for a safer alternative.

You did very well with the photos. I chose the camera I have for its super macro capabilities and it can still be tough. Lighting is so much a part of it. We will be looking for more from you.

 

Oh, I didn't know that! Yes, I have a gem tester and it's the only thing I have that has gone up into the diamond range.

 

Just a quick and dirty shot of the first lava cameo I ever found. It's pretty worn and most likely quite old. The setting is unmarked gold and might even be Georgian for all I'd know. It's about the size of a penny.

 

As lava cameos go, this certainly does appear to have some age on it. Have never seen one I could reliable place back to the Georgian, but I don't know that they had not begun to be made then. Popular as souvenirs to Vesuvius and the towns buried at its feet, lava cameos must have started out as a bit of a novelty. They are vulnerable to damage and seem sometimes to crack spontaneously from dryness. This one has kept its integrity but has certainly become quite effaced. It is probably Dante Alighieri, along with other famous Italian poets and artists, a popular lava subject. Petrarch is another possibility, but think Dante.

 

This is what I mean by the millstone look of many en habillé pieces.



This a very peculiar piece: the setting, with its vertical pin, closed & domed back, looks Georgian; the crude cameo, diamond notwithstanding, looks much later. One of those 'What happened here?' pieces.

 

Yes, I see what you mean. Bizarre!

 

The setting is lovely. Hope whoever did this did not do it in a way that the original mount will be wrecked if someone tries to undo it. Will be surprised if they can sell it for price asked. Never know.

 

The lady I bought my cameo from specializes in cameos & it was in her display cases that I first realized that there were cameos with all manner of images. It was actually mind boggling standing there looking at all of them.

I still had her business card, so I just checked & her website is still active. She has pages of all different sizes, shapes & images. This is a link to her website, but just as a heads up it is not a show n' tell website, it is where she lists her jewelry for sale. I will tell you her prices have increased dramatically since I bought mine from her. I guess you can look on it as some eye candy.

www.cameoheaven.com

 

I don't need to follow the link, I recognize it as Jan Campbell's site. Sometimes I see a cameo for sold in another venue turn up offered by her, so have a pretty good idea of the mark up. She has been collecting and dealing for a very long time and does find some very interesting things.

If you have not seen it, you would also enjoy Giovanna Di Rosa's site. She sells on eBay as 'antiquecameosltd'; can't remember offhand if she uses the same name on Ruby Lane. I sometimes spot her pieces offered through Bonhams as well. She researches her pieces more thoroughly than Jan does hers.

 

If, in the next couple of weeks, three strange men show up at your house, bearing little caskets and claiming a star led them there, for heaven's sake, ask for ID!



Have a good holiday all.

 

It seems related to San Michele island of the deads in Venice, a last trip of a beloved one accompanied with angels...

 

Now that is Lady of Shallot-ish!

 

Both Stravinsky and Diaghilev (Ballets Russes) are buried there, as are many other famous people.

 

Thus bringing a whole new meaning to "dead in the water". I figured the lady was deceased. Mourning piece, maybe.

 

The lady looks too alive to me to be the dear departed & angels do not usually crawl over their charges like an incubus. Not sure what the winged figure in the stern is doing, arranging drapery of some type? This would fit in with a funeral/mourning theme.

I am still inclined to think the lady is alive and reflecting or dreaming with thoughts of love, although could be that in those thoughts is a lost lover.

A monument from San Michele. Evidently, when you die, not all of you droops.