Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

You have stumbled into a hornet's nest here. To the best I can understand them from photos alone, I am convinced the first 2 cameos are shell, not hardstone, & there is no really good reason to think they depict Barbarossa. They are part of a body of similar cameos depicting bearded men, some wearing a turban, a tarboosh or other cap. The shell used is not a member of the Cassis (helmet) family; it is some kind of colorful, thick-walled bivalve (clam type) shell.

When you see a bunch of them together it makes more sense.




The one point on which they may be correct is time of making. Because of the mounts some of them are in - brooches with vertically mounted pins - I had been dating these to turn of the 19th century. However, when one turned up, along with hardstone cameos, as ornamentation on a lavishly decorated elephant tusk that is reliably dated to the 16th century, I had to rethink the matter. The V&A also dates the 3 round cameos of Roman emperors to the 16th.

These are routinely mistaken for hardstone, especially when set in a way that hides the back, which sometimes bears the concavity that is the scar where the large muscle that closes the 2 parts of the shell was attached.

The shell used for these is very durable, so some are still around, but they're rare enough to make me think the time & place of making was limited. I would love to know their secrets.

 

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense if she confused the terms.

 

Silly cameo of the day.
When in Italy...

 

LOL!

 

Is that one of Wallach's? Or Amedeo?

 

IPPOLITA

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1449530450...55-0&campid=5338722076&customid=&toolid=10050

 

The charm is Ippolita but suspect the cameo itself is Amedeo; it's his sort of thing, his sort of price new.

 

Today I learned there is a guy who is known for spaghetti cameos and that's kind of great.

 

I know carving is really hard but...

 

I call them hatchet faces because they look like they were carved with a hatchet.

 

Maybe they were emulating Picasso?

 

This one is the Picasso:

 

Oh, yes... now I remember. That one is brilliant!

 

Is that a mole??

 

A mole..? I might have asked for my other side to be carved but maybe the sitter was proud of the feature. It's a nicely done portrait.

Ol' Pablo did like the ladies. A bare chest is a given.

 

Ah, yes, I do tend to use the words interchangeably. I've corrected my inquiry.

 

I hope this one is yours. The face has a lot of character.

 

Sadly, no, and I agree that it is interesting!
(I'll see if I can find the listing again, and I'll link it here.)

Found it!
Mole man

 

"Retroussé" doesn't begin to cover that nose. His wife loves him, warts & all.

Edit: Just looked at the listing. I should have said "worts & all." Shape of ear is also unusual.

 

I love him too. As a cameo, at least . He's got a great Character Face. The nose! He's too expensive for me but I will think of him fondly.