Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

https://cameotimes.com/index.php/profiles-1/allegorical/day-and-night

 

I’m very sad but I’ll have to let her go.

 

Sorry to hear because the cameo alone is so well done & the frame suits her, just not up to snuff. Pinchbeck, perhaps.

 

There is a separate thread about cameos of this type, but thought I would post one of mine that is also in that thread. Bronwen has identified this figure as Apollo, in his role as leader of the Muses.



Mine has an odd replacement pin on the back.

 

The pin stem looks like it was sliced from the frame of another piece. It's in need of kyratisation.

A fancy term for Apollo as leader of the Muses is Apollo Musagetes.

 

Hello, everyone. I have read this thread routinely even though I've not had cameos to share. Until I was looking in my jewelry box the other day for something and realized my mother's cameo was looking up at me! I remember her having it in the 50's, when I was a youngster and wearing it on special occasions. We were not particularly well off when I was young, we always had enough but not a lot of extravagances. Mother's only jewelry to speak of were her wedding rings and Aurora crystal choker and earrings. I'm not expecting this cameo to be set in gold or anything exciting but I think she is stone or shell, tapped on my teeth she doesn't feel like resin or plastic. The setting is very bright gold color but has no marks at all. She may be glued in to it. There are some scratch marks on the back but nothing that looks like a signature or mark. Headband girl? Please forgive the photos, my kids bought me a new computer for Christmas and I'm still learning to navigate it, I went from Windows7 to Windows10 and my head is spinning. Now that I have a good computer, I must replace my camera, poor thing is just 2.2 megapixels but I couldn't figure out how to use the ones on my phone which are much better! This is the best I got from the macro setting.

Thanks, Linda

 

Resin ponytail girl. She's dime store stuff, but priceless since she was Mom's.

 

Evelyb30 summed it up. She is a nice costume piece. You yourself noted the cameo might be glued in, not usual for shell or stone but common with resin. And then there's the color: that red is not something seen in the helmet shell this is meant to mimic. It's a bit fancier than the average resin cameo in having 2 colors used to make the background look more natural & in the touches of orange at some of the high points, as is sometimes seen on genuine shell.

The real point is that she was special to your mother & is a lovely reminder of her.

 

@Bronwen
The black spots and pitting are curious. Any idea what caused this?
(Not my cameo.)

 

Boring sponges.
https://www.vattenkikaren.gu.se/fakta/arter/spongiar/clionida/clioe.html


https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-boring-holes-of-Cliona-sponge_fig5_303686734

 

I've always found sponges to be rather interesting. The bigger question is why someone would put that much work into carving a shell section in that condition & not incorporate the holes in some way. I really can't imagine how the damage could have happened afterward. (Unless the cameo spent time in the sea again!)

Predator damage of some sort. Something like a sponge that can bore in multiple places at the same time seems like a good bet. Not something like Byne's; the conditions it has been kept in are not a factor in the disfigurement.

 

That's incredibly strange. Unless it was carved to a commission and the buyer picked that shell. Only thing I can think of.

 

Forgot to mention about the black spots. I think is the shellac cement used to secure the shell for carving.
https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/shellac

How is done can be seen on this clip from 1:03 min

 

Actually the boring sponge is not a predator but a filter feeder. They drill shells but also rocks and use the excavated canals as a safe place to live. Unfortunately, this damages and weakens the shells making them more vulnerable to other predators or, in time, the shell can collapse completely killing the mollusk.
I have a cameo with some damage from boring sponge but not as excessive as the one @bluumz has shown us and I can’t think of a reason for using such a shell.
Nevertheless, the cameo is very interesting and unusual and I quite like it.

 

My latest acquisition.
To cheer myself up after returning the previous one.

 

She's a beauty!

 

An interesting hypothesis. I think, though, you would find the black spots are more like little pinholes, not raised bits of adhesive from the dop stick. The back would have been polished. In many places the dots follow darkened veins in the shell, another way the shell itself is strange looking. Could the black spots just be the bottom of the bore holes started above?

Thanks for the video. This is the first time I have encountered a mention of the background shell being artificially colored. I would like to know more about that. It is routine to dye the background layer of hardstone cameos but had not heard of there being any need for it with shell.

 

Fridolina, do you know about these things for reasons other than investigating cameo shell damage? Are you knowledgeable about ocean life in general? Conchology? Or learning as you go? You're doing such a good job with it.

It uses the traditional motifs of Cupid driving a butterfly & Cupid with his dog in a novel way. I like it too.

 

A classic. Congratulations!