Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

It may have been gilt over pinchbeck.

 

Hard to say what the exact alloy was used for the piece,more copper and less zinc would be redder,more zinc and less copper would be more yellow like yellow gold.If it were polished often with an abrasive paste,etc.the plating would be removed.

 

Thanks, hollyblue.
I do understand that the proportions of copper/zinc does make for a variation in pinchbeck colors but I guess I'm still a bit confused... I thought pinchbeck generally wasn't plated or gilded and therefore wouldn't show a color change where it was over-polished/worn.
On the other hand, a gold-plated item with a thin layer of gold over another metal (ie: copper or silver) would show the base metal where the gold-plating was over-polished/worn.
Do I have the right idea?
Sorry about going round and round so much on this piece, LOL.

 

@ bluumz

Plating kept the piece from oxidizing,pinchbeck would oxidize as any copper/brass item over time... https://antique-jewellery.com/onlin...ck-vergoldetes-collier-mit-tuerkisen-um-1850/

See piece in link showing the plating worn off the pendant and the pinchbeck discolored.

 

Gilt brass was very common & pinchbeck is essentially brass. It had a color closer to real gold, so gilding not so necessary. I have never seen a piece that was gilt copper & I'm not spotting the verdigris one would expect lurking in corners.

 

@Bronwen

Not sure what they did in the past copper jewelry plating,but there are thousands of gold plated copper jewelry today..... https://www.google.com/search?q=gol...KHfMWBLA4ChD8BQgPKAI&biw=1541&bih=872#imgrc=_

 

Oh, realize I wasn't clear. I've never seen a Victorian piece that was copper with gold plating. Obviously I can't say it was never, ever, done, but would definitely be a rarity. British jewellers used a fair bit of rose gold, not what we're looking at here. Would think (near) solid copper would have cost more & been much softer than brass, as well as needing more gold to hide it, but, WDIK?

 

Hard and soft are relative terms,annealed pure copper is "soft" and annealed brass is slightly harder than the copper.Work hardened/die struck copper and brass is much harder and is comparable to 14K gold.

 

Realized we're forgetting that what is the outer frame now was never meant to be visible all the time. Originally, when worn, the walls of the bezel/memento compartment would have been mostly hidden by the outer mount, the frame within which the compartment could rotate. The way cabinetry has 'secondary' wood, I find cameo brooches typically have a secondary metal used for parts that are not strictly decorative.

 

In relation with the discussion about mounts.
I suppose this Art Nouveau cameo was mounted in gold and a very intelligent guy sold the gold for less than 100$, now I have to make a new mount to sold it if will be wearable, gold or silver ?
As I want to make it as a pendant with a very simple mount, silver seems to be the more interesting for me and for the buyer at his doesn’t pay for the metal, only for a wearable cameo, what do you think about this ?

You can see others details on this page.

 

I just picked up a good book on the subject... Cameos Old & New by Anna M. Miller.
Chapters include:
History, Subject Matter, Production, Distinguishing Old & New, Appreciating, Building a Collection and Historic Collections.

 

Sweet piece, but I do not see Art Nouveau in the style, everything is realistically rendered.

 

If you are going to buy the Miller book, you want a later edition revised by Diana Jarrett. It is certainly comprehensive. I have never given it a thorough reading because I find it so riddled with errors that I can recognize, I am left wondering about the accuracy in areas where I have less knowledge.

I pulled the 4th Edition off my shelf, flipped through & stopped at page 30 to see what it had to say about two cameos pictured. Both are identified as Leda & the Swan. One is; the other is a well-known, quite common version of Hebe & the Eagle.

Flipping around a bit more, found myself approving of the admonition that auctioneers & appraisers do not always know very much about cameos (pg. 232) so that sometimes a knowledgeable buyer can get a good price. She goes on to give an example. I am going to go on at length here:

...a gold and stone cameo brooch with a mid-nineteenth-century label and this caption: "Depicting an allegorical scene of two maidens overlooking a putto floating in the clouds, holding aloft a flower-filled cornucopia, as an owl surveys; the reverse signed F. Zignani, Engraver, Roma"

The piece sold for $577. The author believes it would have fetched more if only the auctioneer had mentioned that the piece was in excellent condition, 'masterfully carved' and had identified it correctly:

Rather than being simply allegorical, this cameo actually contained portraits of Venus and Cupid with Minerva and her owl.

I'm sure any bidders could see the condition and quality of carving without having it pointed out. I have not seen it, but am willing to bet the scene described is the allegorical one of Day & Night: Day with the Genius of Light; Night, with her owl, her veiled, nodding head wreathed with poppy pods not looking the least like Minerva. If they were familiar with common 19th century cameo subjects, bidders would have recognized the description as accurate.



I was expecting the clincher would concern the signature, which no doubt looked very much like this one, which does not say 'Zignani':


However, the Miller/Jarrett book makes no mention of the one thing that might have sent the bidding higher.

Nearly all the illustrations are in black and white, limiting its usefulness as a primer on cameo materials. Buy it used; read with skepticism.

 

It is probably more saleable wearable than loose. Due to the current high price of gold, the situation has been that cameos of lesser quality than this one are sometimes selling for ridiculously high prices because the mount is gold, while some really excellent pieces are being undervalued because they are set in silver.

The undulating shape of the section of shell used for this cameo will mean that a bezel setting will not be so simple to do, while a prong setting may not give the best aesthetic result. Pendant is definitely preferable over a brooch.

I see it as certainly art nouveau influenced, if not exactly haute nouveau. The tendrils of hair bound with pearls, the flowers, the bird improbably perched on the flowers are nouveau enough for me.

 

I am highly prejudiced, but I feel until I finish reading (much less absorbing) https://cameotimes.com/ , I don't want a book.

 

You would at least recognize Hebe and Day & Night.

 

I would definitely recognize Hebe.

Give me a couple of minutes and I'll be up to snuff on the second one.

 

This is a good chance to ask -- what the deal with black spots/pinholes?

 

The cutter used a drill to finish off the center of the roses & some little curls of hair. Those drill holes became perfect catch points for the grunge that can also be seen around the tail of the dove & between some of its feathers, etc.

 

Maybe personal taste, but that just seems like a bad plan all around. Even without the dirt, I don't think it improves the carving.

I mean, roses don't actually have holes in the center.