Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Thank you! I’m starting to like her.

The boring sponge drills canals into the shell with holes coming up to the surface through which the excavated material is dumped, a bit like the mole hills and it will continue to occupy that shell even after the mollusk has died.

I think that the shell, already damaged by by the boring sponge, got the holes and canals filled with the melted soft shellac when stuck on the dop stick and that’s why the black spots are mainly on the reverse of the cameo. After finishing carving, the carver managed to clean the shellac from the flat surfaces but not from the holes and canals.
Just a hypothesis...

Not really, just general knowledge.
About the boring sponges I learned when I wanted to find out what drilled the small holes on my Michelangelo shell cameo.
At the time, you mentioned that most of the cameos, you have seen with such type of damage, are conch shell.

 

A good, coherent one. It still baffles me why, with all the helmet shell sections there must have been to choose from, the carver settled on that one.

The damage I see on conch shell looks more like some sort of boring worm; the holes don't show that reticular arrangement, they're squirmy.

 

Not so sure.

 

Does anyone restore shell cameos? I don't mean the settings, but the actual cameos? I see so many that have been chipped when ripped from their settings in order to sell the gold. Some are beautiful, and often the chip doesn't extend into the portrait, but still the missing area needs to be replaced. I'm thinking someone, somewhere must be a whiz with resin or some other material.

 

An interesting question. I certainly see resin cameos these days that are frighteningly realistic. The materials available today are phenomenal, just ask @kyratango , but getting the color just right would be a challenge. I have seen mounted cameos with a moderate chip that have had another piece of shell fitted to the gap. I've also see pieces that have had some metal added to the setting to cover the missing area. One option to overcome the damage is to remove nearly all of the background layer, leaving just the white figure, & then set in a custom mount. I'm with you in deploring the damage that is being done to some beautiful pieces so the gold can be scrapped.

 

I have a pin sitting here that's a piece of amber in a silver mount. Someone superglued what looks like a small hardstone cameo in the center; they probably found it after some idiot scrapped its setting. Probably thought the pin was costume.

 

Yet to find a cheap but nice cameo to give a try\experiment for a repair... I don't desperate

 

I have seen on YouTube clips of contemporary shell cameo carvers and also examples of their work on different websites.
Do you know if anyone is engraving cameos in hardstone now?
Are all hardstone cameos antique?

 

Most contemporary hardstone cameos you see now have been cut ultrasonically & dyed to unnatural colors:



The modern hardstone engravers with whom I'm acquainted, such as Erwin Pauly, are German (the cameos shown above are also German). Here are some examples of Pauly's work:



A modern master, now retired, who worked in intaglio is Jurgen Reinhardt.

There is still a lapidary industry in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. If there are still gem engravers in Italy, they have not been making a name for themselves.

 

I don’t really like them but probably it’s a good idea to keep people interested in cameos.

Thanks @Bronwen for the links!

 

I don't either except there's a Persian cat one I see frequently that reminds me of my late beloved Aubrey, who was also white.

 

Hello,

Some help with these please: Here is what I know: first two and last one are shell. The last is silver, the first did not pass the acid test for silver. The second I have not tested for anything. The third is a glass cameo and plastic feeling backing. Last one is an interesting composition to me, anyone know what it’s supposed to be showing? Anything you can add to my knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

 

The first one is gold-filled; the clasp says 1910-1920. The second one is shell, and I don't think as old as it wants to be. But... dibs on the third one; I'd bet that backing is jet or bakelite. The clasp is screwed into it It has a Continental trombone clasp on it. French mourning piece? Bronwen will know, most likely; I'm just an amateur.

 

I pretty well agree with what evelyb30 said, except I don't think the third piece is mourning jewellery, it just happens to be black. Don't know that mourning jewellery as a fashion much survived Victoria, who died in 1901. All four pieces are later than that. The second one is interesting in style, both the cameo & the mount. I would guess it to be 1930s. The last one is fun. Mid-century, a tipsy bacchante/maenad being helped along by a faun. I have not seen this composition before.

 

There is a seller on Etsy selling ‘hand engraved’ cameos. A buyer was asking on FB if people thought it was or not and having had a look it would seem to my inexperienced eye that they are all ultrasound cut. They aren’t expensive enough to be hand cut as they are very intricate and would be massively expensive. Also they have some on sale identical to ones sold and in their feedback. The only hand engraved bit I can see is the signatures on the back so I think there is some stretching of the truth going on!.

 

If they are hardstone & you see duplicates, you can be sure, especially if modestly priced, that very little hand work went into them.

 

The Etsy shop
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NettunoSt...R2CiqwsWg2J03yhn7Ck0KsugJsFljiVfJl4NmidGypc-4

 

I can’t see any hardstone cameos in this shop.

 

I didn’t say they were hard stone, I just said cameos. Can shell cameos not be carved by ultrasound?

 

This is a question to which I would really like to know the answer. My vague understanding has been that ultrasound is too forceful for shell. @Hollyblue may know something about this. We have video links here & there in this thread that show cameos being made.



Shell cameos like the ones at NettunoStars are copied repeatedly. Think we would be surprised how quickly an accomplished cutter can complete one.