Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/198373

 

@PepperAnna See you've been by the site again. We never came to a conclusion about whether to have a separate thread for cameo portraits where the sitter has been identified. I originally came down on the side of separate, but now think that, since the rest of us really do not have any of non-famous individuals whose identity has been discovered through talented research, maybe you would want to post them in a cluster here, taking care, as has been suggested, to include in the write up the key words/phrases most likely to get them found by anyone searching for that person.

 

The findings definitely appear original. What do you think of the age of the piece?

 

Me, too! My youngest child is my only boy and he was a chubby little guy, birth weight 10lb 5oz. All the pudgy cupids, putti, and cherubs always make me think of him as a baby/toddler.

You may remember this piece from my collection that I showed off earlier in this thread:

 

that's

that's hardly a roll.......just more for the goose to love !!1

 

Swan, you goose.

 

I had forgotten this one. Is it ceramic? Such a great image. Sometimes it's the Graces who tie him up. This time looks like they got together with Psyche & really did a job on him: hands bound; wings bound at the base; wings tied together.

 

It appears to be some kind of bisque or parian ware, I'm not quite sure. If you search this thread for "cupid bound" you'll find my post with more photos.

 

On one hand, the hinge & clasp make me think late 19th. On another hand, the cameo itself seems earlier to me, from a time when they were still following engraved gems, 1870-80s. On the third hand, trying to think when mounts with this type of frame began appearing. Looked through the part of my collection that is readily visible & discovered I don't have a single one in that style, although I have certainly seen it enough times. Would have been influenced by the 'archeological' style.

Cameo & setting may not be contemporary. I'm sure many a time a cameo was bought loose as a souvenir by someone who had every intention of getting it set as soon as they got home, only to languish in its box.

 

Makes sense, thank you!

 

This Juno (?) cameo was in an inexpensive lot of costume cameos, marked as all gold tone and silver tone. I was instantly drawn to her but wondered if the yellow was grime or someone attempting to paint her.

I gave her a first soak and clean and discovered a lot of Byne's Disease under the yellow.



From there she got a distilled soak. I don't own a typewriter eraser, but I own several other options so I gave one of my white erasers a go and it melted away! I was so impressed! Thanks to the detailed overview on @Bronwen 's website I was able to do a great restore on her.



(back before cleaning)

She appears to be in the manner of other later cameos I've seen with the hair placement, but her carving is so well done. She has little eyelashes!

The frame and pin tested as 10k gold. I think the seller assumed otherwise because her clasp and hinge had a later 1900ish update with some truly clumsy soldering work and that probably looked like base metal coming through. Hook instead of bail. No signatures, just scratches. So, Victorian Juno?

 

Hi All!
I purchased this cameo today at a local antique mall.
She was only $20, so I had to adopt her!
She appears to be shell, and is well carved. Gold filled frame. Unmarked.
But I'm having trouble figuring out who she depicts.
No flowers or anything in the hair, but she is wearing pearls. Any help will be appreciated!
I went to Cameo Times first,(thanks Bronwen, for the great resource!) but I wasn't sure, so I'm asking here
@Bronwen @PepperAnna

 

Ha as I said above, I have seen similar hair and other placement to the Juno I picked up and @stracci posts one in kind a few minutes later! Similar toga, beads, long hair placement, features, whisps, etc. I wonder what original image they all worked from! They seem to have varied the goddess attributes on these, but kept some of the base design.

Stracci she is really beautifully carved and $20 was a steal, even if the frame is filled. I would have taken her home too. She doesn't seem to have any goddess attributes I recognize.

 

I was looking at your cameo posted above, and noticing these similarities, too! The drape of her garment and hair tendril on the neck is almost identical in both our cameos.
They must've been modeled after the same image!

 

now, that's funny !!!

 

Funny strange or funny haha?

 

Yes, what I think of as late stage peak, period when cameos highly popular, but not degraded by flood of some-guy-in-a-shed cameos, so 1890s or so. Yes, a Hera/Juno type, although no guarantee cutter had anyone in particular in mind.

Very happy the info on Byne's was useful & helped you restore her to her new glory.

 

Funny , strange & ha ha.....that you both post singularly similar cameo's at almost ....within minutes of each other , the same time.......with no collusion !

 

ps....I like yours better..!

 

In the Tassie impressions, there is a whole section of "Heads of Ladies, with the hair dressed in Greek or Roman fancy". Subcategories are "Ditto, with frontlets." (The French is "dito, avec des bandeaux frontal". Then " Ditto, with diadems or frontlets". After that come ladies "with diadems or fillets". My favorites start at impression 14701, "the Fair Laundress."

There is no doubt cameo cutters copied from other cameos, probably more often than they consulted prints of artwork or impressions of engraved gems, especially in later years of the craze.