Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

OK, everybody. Opinions wanted. This is not a test, I don't know the right answer either. Are these 2 cameo portraits of the same person? If they are, then a public figure, not a private individual. Anyone have the faintest idea who?

 

Not unless he aged 30+ years and added at least 50 pounds weight.

 

Not Robert Walpole:

 

I don't think they are the same person. But, the look is familiar. So far I'm not finding portraits with period clothing with the wide fur collar, except a few of Henry VIII. And it's not him. I've also been scanning portraits of famous philosophers and composers of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Nothing even remotely close yet.

 

Thanks for searching. I'm terrible both at history & recognizing faces, so very handicapped at this pursuit. Suspect neither, even if not same person, is a portrait made of some guy who was known only to his private circle.

Put this question up in the wee hours. Didn't occur to mention that first one is signed Mouhé, so could be French writer/thinker.

 

I think it's possible they are the same guy, though I would have said the first piece is when he's older.

No current clue as to identification.

 

They are both so well done, have to think cutters got the line of the nose pretty close to correct. Can see the face getting less rounded with age, noses sometimes get larger, but... Own hair or wig?

 

Not my area of expertise, but I believe both are plausible.

 

That's the closest I've found for hair.

Don't know the origin of the images (they're popular), but here's a tumblr link (which gives an origin, but it's a 404)
https://technotropism.tumblr.com/post/25573702030/18th-century-mens-hats-and-wigs-from-the-village

 

Any thoughts on the age of this one please?. Base metal . No idea what she’s made of- sort of looks moulded maybe but wdik!.

 

She's odd. Definitely molded, but an earlier artificial piece. Do you have her or are you trying to make a buying decision based on photos? I'm curious about whether she would sound hollow if you tapped her cheek; she looks like she could be Celluloid or similar. What surprises me is how much she looks like any number of helmet & conch shell ladies, as though the mold was made from an impression of a hand carved piece. She has the grain stalks of the goddess Ceres.

 

My first thought would be celluloid, especially in that sort of frame.

 

IMHO, definitely two different men.
The nose is very different. The first man has a rather long nose compared to the second man. The second man's nose is quite pert.
The chin/jawline is very different. Man #1's chin is quite pointed, and points at a downward angle. Man #2's chin is rounded and does not angle downward. Man #1's jawline angles upward, man #2's is fairly horizontal.
I suppose the chin/jawline differences could seem to be caused by aging and weight-gain, but I think the differences are too marked... and the nose differences cannot be explained without rhinoplasty.

 

I think that's exactly what happened. A cameo gets pressed into a quick hardening dough-like rubber/silicone compound that becomes a mold. Crafters use it all the time -- rubber, silicone, you can buy kits on Amazon and it is easy peasy.

Common issue is not making the mold deep enough, so you lose details like in the hair. Barn's Bernice had similar issues.

 

Except I think she is in her original frame, which looks older than the silicone molds that can be made now. Molded she is, though, & I have seen ever so many like her in shell.

 

I haven't secured an art reference, but dentists have been making impression molds since the early 1800s.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28777510
"Beeswax represents the first impression material, while important bechmarks during the historical evolution of dental impression materials are considered to be the introduction of dental trays in the early 1800s and the invention of the gutta-percha, thermoplastic resins and plaster of Paris."

 

James Tassie made a wildly successful business with impressions of engraved gems:

https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/gems/tassie/default.htm

A while before that, the Romans were taking impressions of engraved gems & then making molds for reproductions in glass:

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

I will add that the Roman glass intaglios are much sharper in their lines than this cameo. It's not that a mold couldn't have been taken of a shell cameo to make KSW's cameo, one obviously was, it just wasn't one of those super flexible ones you can make now in your kitchen that even allow you to capture a little bit of undercutting. I showed this back on page 16, made using a mold taken from a stone cameo:



An experiment, we didn't know how to work properly with chocolate. The blurry hand is due to blurry carving on the original.

 

I totally forgot about Tassie. So we know impression molds were done.

Obviously, I have missed the point.

Again.

 

Sorry for the radio silence, work got in the way!.
I've got the brooch here. I bought her yesterday at a car boot sale. I know her quality etc isn't great but I like to learn so bought it (£1.50)out of interest.
She looks and feels like celluloid. Difficult to say if completely hollow as she's slightly loose in the frame so it sounds hollow. Ive tried to look through the holes in the back with a loupe and it definitely dips in towards the centre although I can't say by how much without taking my eye out on the pin!!.
What date is the frame suggesting?.I feel it's contemporary with the cameo. That sounds just a feeling though which means nothing. Thankyou for your interest

 

I don't see celluloid. Have you clicked it on your teeth?