Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Another auction house euphemism:

Small Victorian gold mounted cameo portrait brooch set seed pearls in original box (box at fault).

 

On a different note: check out the first piece on this page. Now that's a nice coral cameo.

http://www.faycullen.com/blog/coral/

 

That one is very nice indeed. As is so often the case, there is one joker in the pack, one IDed as angel skin that is not coral at all.

 

It looked like shell to me too.

 

I forget whether this topic has been discussed here before, but... does it seem that there are more cameos with the head facing in the opposite direction from the way that the ones in Bronwen's post are? For the sake of discussion let's say that the ones in her latest post are facing to our left, when looking at them.

Looking at the ones that I have, it seems that only about 20% are facing that direction. Most are the opposite. But it could be that for some reason I've selected them that way, unconsciously. It may not represent the universe of cameos.

The attachment above shows the direction I usually see in cameos I own.

 

An excellent question & a good one to cover here.

It seems I see these terms used some what inconsistently, but the fancy word for 'right facing' is 'dextral'; for 'left facing', 'sinistral'. The inconsistency comes with whether it is used to mean the figure's 'proper' left or right, or the viewer's. Think I see it used more often to express the viewer's point of view.

I constantly see sellers including in their description the fact that it is a 'rare' left facing cameo. It is true that they are less common than ones facing the other way, but they are far from rare, & collectors do not place any value on the handedness. The pins on these two boards were not selected with any regard for direction the subject is facing. A quick scroll through gives you an idea of the frequency of sinistral presentations:

https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/

https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/

A quick perusal will also show you that what are, if not quite rare, uncommon in the cameo world (surprise, surprise), are portraits of real women, while portraits of men, private citizens as well as public/historical figures, abound. This is something that does not seem generally to have been observed, so never see a piece touted, & priced, on this factor.

To throw another high falutin word at you, the chirality (handedness) of cameos is believed to be due to the handedness of the cutter, with sinistral profiles being the work of lefties. Although no one has looked in to this in a serious way, this makes the most sense to me. If you think which way you would naturally carve a profile, & how it would feel to use the other hand, it will make sense to you too. Since the percentage of left-handers in the population is lower than right, lefties are really overrepresented among cameo portrait makers.

Evidence for this hypothesis is all those pairs of earrings with a reasonably decent cameo on one, and a botch job on its mate, which is facing the other way. However:

 

Iips, (@Figtree3 I just did it too) hit 'post' instead of 'upload'. To continue:



All four of these are signed by Tommaso Saulini. Probably an argument for ambidexterity among top notch artists rather than one against a relationship between direction a profile is facing & which hand was used to cut it.

Does that answer your question?

 

@Figtree3 Just edited part 1 of the post to get the photos in the right place. It may have been pretty confusing as it was. I'm a riot of typos today.

 

Yes, it does!

New word for me! Yay --

Quite a use of imagination! I'd never be able to do that... in either direction.

 

Thank you! I had figured it out, but others may not.

 

Before one of you starts looking into whether Tommaso preferentially made his ladies sinistral, this rather poor photo from the V&A shows one of his hardstone portraits:

 

I think the carvings are based on an original painting/drawing of the subject. It wouldn't matter which hand the carver used as the rough shell is mounted at the end of a round stick and rotated 360 degrees while carving.

 

Very true. When you look at old tourist guides for Rome, you see photography studios with addresses not far from those of big name cameo cutters. I can just imagine someone coming into, say, Filippo Tignani's workshop & being told to go to a nearby photographer & have their picture taken, with instructions regarding which way to face, although Tignani could probably readily do either way.

Cameos of famous people, popes, rulers & their relatives, are often taken from coins or medals. In those cases, I do see faithful reproduction, regardless of chirality:


A gem engraver who made their own version of an imaginary/fictitious figure was free to have this goddess or that nymph face this way or that. (Have you ever seen a lassie?) Have to think they would have chosen the direction that required less manipulation of the stone/they knew gave them better results. Since we see both orientations, have to think they did have preferences.

 

Thinking a little more, all those pairs of earrings with profile subjects of unequal quality suggest that so-so cutters, for whatever reason, were not equally good in both directions.

 

The one in silver has reappeared, now as
Vintage Silver Lady with a Peace Dove Cameo Brooch Pin

and 'I believe the cameo is carved from a resin material'.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/183732948061

You may have to look in completed listing, as it now has less than a day to go.

 

Darned thing has bids. Not high, but bids. It's attractive enough as a costume piece, but ... eep.

 

These never fail to do well, even when correctly described as artificial. Someone at the mystery company that produced them had an incredibly good eye for finding irresistibly appealing images. The plaques, such as The Calmady Children, can all be traced to the original art work. Have to suspect the cameos are also copied from somewhere, but have yet to find originals. Possibly, like Incolay Studios, they did a mix of copies & original work by their own modelers in similar style.

Wonder whether the one in gold that sold for about $400 is/will be back up for sale. Sad to think there is someone out there believing they got a great treasure.

 

I hope they just wanted Grandma's cameo and didn't care what it was made from or what it cost.

 

Evidently, you can have it all:



Psyche's wing; Diana's crescent moon; Flora's leaves.

 

An embarrassment of riches!