Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

It’s been there about a week now and they’ve been told by several pickers that it’s not gold and the cameos are resin, they don’t care. Though I find great picks at this store I still hate to see unscrupulous managers that don’t care if they scam someone.

 

I also know they’re breaking the law selling it as 14k gold.

 

By this:

did you mean just their scrawled tag? Or is the piece itself marked as 14K? It's very difficult, when someone has been told by an 'expert' that something is the wonderful treasure they so much want it to be for a 'non-expert' ( read as Who the H are you?!) to persuade them otherwise.

 

If the piece is marked 14K,they wouldn't be breaking the law.I don't believe they are required to test for metal content.There are hundreds or more under carat pieces which have not been marked for the correct metal content sold at many retail shops.

 

AND, I LOVE how he’s extruding from the frame!!!!!

 

BTW, the side view on that GORGEOUS emerald cameo that was at Christie’s is nearly as gorgeous as frontal.........YUMMMMM!!!!!

 

Helluva Jell-o mold!

 

I should have mentioned it has a burn hole in the back from being acid tested, that’s how I and other pickers knew it wasn’t gold. I don’t understand why a jeweler would tell them it was gold and to price it so high if it was tested and failed.
So, in my opinion, someone knew it wasn’t gold and they put it out and marked the tag 14k anyway.

 

Knowing Spenders, I'm not surprised. They have a bad habit of overpricing jewelry, real or costume. You go hoping to get lucky.

 

The chain I wear him on is too short for me to really see him, no matter how far down I tuck my chin. Don't want him swinging out & banging into things when I lean forward. But the high relief makes him very pleasing to the fingertips.

 

Without a better look at them, it's difficult to be completely sure, but I think they really are stone, or possibly glass, but not resin:



For starters, artificial cameos made in a mold are not generally so bad. These are an ugly figure, crudely cut. There's no point in mass producing cameos that look like this. Also, although all three follow the same template, no two are identical, as you would expect the two at the sides to be. I only raise glass as a possibility because of the look of the chips I think I'm seeing. But, as shown, they are not inconsistent with modern hardstone.

In my opinion, it would be a far better, more valuable piece if the cameos were any of the gorgeous French glass ones. These, even if hand cut stone, are worthless in my eyes.

 

I'd throw $10 at it, but no more, just because of the ugly. Sometimes ugly sells. No more than that however unless I could melt the setting, and that setting doesn't even look real from here.

 

Think the cameos are supposed to be of the Mädchen type. Poor pic, but this sort of thing (nose is chipped):

 

Hope not too off topic but...

Taking the liberty of posting a lovely Botticelli -- Portrait of a Young Woman -- who just happens to be wearing a cameo.



The cameo is identified as a copy of "Nero's Seal" which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici and features Apollo and Marsyas.



Debora

 

Not off topic at all & thanks for showing her to us. My friend who deals in coins & engraved gems was able to establish the authenticity of a gem with the characteristic LAVR MED engraved into the front because there is a contemporary portrait in which the sitter is wearing the cameo.

Wish I had had enough time to really study them, but when the Met had an exhibition of Vigée-Lebrun's work, many of her subjects were wearing cameos, including her husband, in a ring. She was mostly painting the Napoleonic court.

 

Here's a detail of her portrait of Caroline Murat with cameo and pearl belt.

Debora

 

Cameos: one on bosom; one in tiara. We associate the fashion with Queen Victoria, but Napoleon's gang were wild about them first.

 

Isn't it amazing what gruesome scenes might adorn a lady? And Nero himself turns up regularly. I've probably shown this one before. It's copied from an Italian baroque notion of what Roman emperors looked like:

 

Caroline Murat's cameo tiara is still alive and kicking and being worn occasionally. I found pictures of it by accident once.