Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

That's what I was thinking... the third photo does make the background appear transparent.

 

I thought the black spots and streaks were off. But I admit to spending more time with glass than agate.

 

A wolf may go well with the parrot/rooster/dog/horse cameo:

 

Amazing that she has survived, snout intact!

 

More cameo eye candy.
Queen Victoria as a girl, carved in ivory, attributed to Norbert Schrodl:

 

Incredible carving of the lace !!! And the movement in the ribbon
Thanks, bluumz for showing

 

It was actually the sole bidder who was willing to meet the opening bid.

 

Everyone is correct that it is an assembled piece using a geode slice (just a particular agate formation) for the background. She is not as sloppily glued as she appears. Those bits of brown here & there at the edges are the remnants of the brown helmet shell background. She has been carefully chipped out of what was probably a broken background & given new life this way.

I have shown one before (I think?) that is salvaged shell on glass.



The interesting thing about this one is that the glass undulates just as shell often does, leading me to believe a mold was made from the intact shell piece before separating out the figures.

This is also shell, attached to a chalcedony blank:

 

She is one of the loveliest pieces in the Portraits section of my Ivory Cameos Pinterest board:

https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/ivory-cameos-reliefs/

 

Sometimes these are hounds, so guessing this little vixen is a fox.

 

aha. That explains the one bit I could not sort out.

 

Thank you for the link to your pinterest boards, I'd been meaning to ask you for that.
I will continue my quest for a fabulous cameo that you haven't yet seen, LOL!

Well, heck, I hadn't even noticed the bits of shell left behind!

 

This is one that followed me home over the weekend. I'm 90% sure she's lava and for once still has her nose! The pinback alas is broken off entirely.

 

My other Pinterest boards:

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

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

https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/saintly-cameos/

https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/ancient-banded-glass-intaglios/

I've been teaching you what to look for in cameos when all you have are photos & a seller's unreliable description.

 

I am still trying to learn about cameos that fall under 'lava'. Some, with very high relief & undercutting to the point that some parts are semidetached are clearly hand carved volcanic material. Many are not so extreme but still show signs of having been worked by hand. And then there are ones that really look like lava, but also show all the signs of having been molded.

It's the last category I would like to know more about. Understandably, the method of their manufacturing is not something makers want to publicize. The book Cameos: Classical to Costume, Clements & Clements, is organized by materials, & is mainly devoted to 20th century costume quality cameos. (Lots of Ponytail & Headband Girls.) They have a few pages on cameos/intaglios made by Tagliamonte, including a full page photo of what looks like an array of lava cameos produced by them. There is a section on lava cameos; this is separate. Text says: 'The designers at Tagliamonte have discovered a method of creating a material that is the equivalent of lava. These cameo artists use the process create for the jasper ware cameo [sic] by Josiah Wedgwood.' It is clear they use molds made from older, carved pieces. I know I read somewhere, once, that modern lava cameos are made of lava ash mixed with resin & molded. And then there are the ones that are glassy under a grainy surface.



If the cameo above is contemporary with its setting, it was made a good long while ago now.

The very rounded, won't-snag-in-a-mold, lines of your girl make me think was made by a method other than hand carving. Doesn't mean you can't love her. In the lava section of the Clements book there are many photos of what appear to be all part of the same collection, common lava cameos mounted for wall display on what looks like black velvet in gilt frames of various shapes & sizes.

 

Oh well. I wasn't entirely sure; the fact that she has her nose ought to have tipped me off.(LOL)

 

'Lava' is a really vexed topic, as I say on my site. The only ones I really trust to be entirely hand carved (not precluding the use of hand held motorized tools) volcanic material are ones like those at the start of the article, ones cut in material that would not be molded and/or cut in a way inconsistent with molding, including molding with finishing touches added by hand.

On her site, Jan Campbell warns, in general terms, about fakes:
http://www.cameoheaven.com/tutorial.html

FAKE ALERT==IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THERE ARE LAVA CAMEOS BEING MADE NOW THAT LOOK JUST LIKE THE OLD ONES.THEY ARE REPROS.SOME BEING MADE IN ENGLAND. BE CAREFUL IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR OLD LAVA PIECES.I RECENTLY PURCHASED WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LAVA CAMEO.IT WAS TO HEAVY,TO SHINY AND WHEN LOOKED AT IT UNDER A LOUPE THERE WERE TINY BEADS WHERE THE POURED LIQUID HAD HARDENED OUTSIDE OF MOLD.THERE WERE NO CARVE MARKS AND THE SETTING LOOKED VERY OLD -EVEN HAD SOLDER IN DIFFERENT PLACES.PLEASE WATCH OUT FOR THESE.THEY ARE VERY HIGH RELIEF.3 WKS AFTER I SENT THIS BACK THE IDENTICAL CAMEO IN A DIFFERENT FRAME CAME UP ON EBAY FROM ANOTHER STATE.2 DIFFERENT FRAMES,2 DIFFERENT STATES BUT THE SAME HIGH RELIEF LAVA HEAD.A LADY FEEDING A BIRD GRAPES.PLEASE NOTE SOME OF THEM DO NOT HAVE THE BEADS.

Right after this she warns about, I think, the cameos I refer to as Danbiere, because little boxes with the cameo on the lid say that on the bottom:

THERE IS ANOTHER CAMEO BEING MADE IN ENGLAND.VERY HIGH RELIEF WOMEN WITH GRAPES IN HER HAIR-IT COMES IN PINK,WHITE,BLACK AND AMBER.IT IS USUALLY SET IN SILVER LOOKING MATERIAL.THIS IS VERY LARGE AND HIGH RELIEF.LOOKS VERY GOOD.THEY HIT THE MARKET AROUND 5 YRS AGO.THEY SELL IN ENGLAND FOR AROUND 50.00.I HAVE SEEN MANY OF THESE ON THE INTERNET.

In some ways, I don't think of these as fakes, the way I don't think of Incolay as fake. it is what it is: a high quality simulant of carved stone. Dripstone cameos are also produced in molds; I don't think of them as fake either. If what might be called reconstituted lava is the material used now, little carving of solid chunks goes on anymore, then they are the legitimate lava cameos of our time. The only error is in describing them has hand carved.

 

Sounds like the two GrayLady pieces I originally thought were resin.

And while I know you (@Bronwen ) and I have had the conversation in private, I'd like to point out here, that the "little beads" are actually from voids in the mold. Just like the end product (cameo), the mold is also "cast" and the voids were most likely caused by popped air bubbles when that mold was the "end product".

Fill the mold to make a cameo, fill the voids = little beads.

This information courtesy of Mr Jivvy who has cast both molds and end-products in a variety of materials.

Any errors are due to my inability to maintain focus during lessons.

Totally agree with that!

 

The take home message is that pimples should never appear on a cameo cut from a solid piece of material.

 

So much easier to remember.