Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Here is my newest addition to my growing collection.. I bought this one because of the wonderful pictures and all the knowledge in this post.. so, thank you, everybody ! (if my husband asks, I will say you are to blame.... )

 

After receiving some good advice from you fellow cameo lovers, I decided to take the plunge and buy the cameo I asked about in post #1059 (page 53 of this thread). She arrived today and she is breathtaking in person! So happy!!

 

I will be perfectly happy to accept it. If you go back to page 15 of this thread you will see some other depictions of Cupid & Psyche. Bouguereau did several different versions. Yours, with Psyche in the lead, is more like this one:



https://collections.lacma.org/node/201898

 

Excellent! Guessing the various shadows & spots we discussed when you first showed it are much less conspicuous in person, no?

 

I'm always saying that someday I will be struck down for hubris, any time I disagree with an authority, such as a museum. But, looking again at the Saint-Ours painting, I think the subject is misidentified and that it is Venus & Cupid, not Cupid & Psyche. As noted already, the female figure is leading the action. Psyche is not traditionally shown with both breasts bared, while Venus is often presented this way. The doves off to the left side are the goddess' companions, not Psyche's. In the painting the female is not winged and she is teasing Cupid by withholding his bow out of his reach, a common theme for Venus & Cupid.



The addition of Psyche's characteristic moth-like wings turns Xristina's cameo into Cupid & Psyche, but the image behind it was probably Venus & her son.

 

Oh, yes. I was a bit worried about trying to clean it, but I'm not even sure I'll bother now, since the spots are barely visible.

 

It is beautiful, Lucinda ! Enjoy wearing it !

 

Hi everyone
I have been a long time lurker and have been following this thread. Do you mind if I share some cameo pictures I took from the Louvre. I thought they were unique since they were stuck on a crown.

 

Welcome, Roshan. Sounds beautiful.

 

Not able to upload pictures yet. or make new post.
says have insufficient privileges to post.

 

Maybe later. I don't know how the privileges thing works, but I'm sure it will be ok soon.

 

There are no restrictions on who can post to the thread, so guessing it's a matter of getting your member registration confirmed. And then photo files have to be under 1 MB, a limit that often challenges first time posters. We'll be happy to walk you through it when you get the go ahead. Is this Josephine's crown we're talking about?

 

What you get when cameo cutters lost touch with neoclassical traditions:

 

Bronwen, thank you for posting the above to show the difference/evolution (and not for the better) in cameos.

 

When you first start looking beyond cameos like 'Ponytail Girl', something like this looks pretty spiffy. When you get in deeper, you realize it's more of an aberration.

 

Bronwen, overall, that's a very NICE cameo just above, except for that large partial random right arm going up, out and no-where!!!! Rather distracting, at least to me, on an otherwise lovely cameo!!! Just my 2 cents worth

 

For me, it's the "crown" (or Jester hat) that hurts my eyes....

 

That stuff sticking up out of the crown is hair. Cutter must really have been into beads, to give her that triple strand necklace & to show even the last of the beads where they disappear behind her neck after being obscured by a lock of hair. I don't think this is what is going on here, but some depictions of Diana are cropped from a full figure image of her either in the act of drawing her bow or right after she has loosed an arrow, & there is sometimes the stump of a raised arm in the composition.