Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

She is stunning. The carving makes wonderful use of the stone's layers. It is such a delicate carving. All I can say is WOW!

 

I just got a gadget that I find very helpful. It is an illuminated stand magnifier. It is an Eschenbach VisoLux+. I found it on eBoo for $25. Normally they run in the $300s. It is so much nicer than a handheld magnifier or a loupe, and the image is very clear and bright. Here are some pics in case you are interested. The pic with the cameo doesnt captue the true brightness or detail, for some reason.

 

Well, the universe smiled on me today. I had bought a cameo with an unreadable signature on the front. There were very few bidders. When I got it today, the signature was clearly FROULLE! What are the odds??!! It is signed on both front and back, but the signature on the back is a bit hard to read. I still have to clean her up and get rid of the scar on her chest, but I was so excited to see her. She isn't in the list of his works, but that's okay. Not an unusual subject, but nicely executed and in a beautiful rose gold frame. It made my day.

 

This is my first cameo, and I absolutely adore it. I will definitely share if I acquire more in the future!

 

She is so serene. She'll be so lovely when she's had that refreshing bath!

 

Beautiful!! I love cameos with wonderfully thought out and executed hair tendrils, to say nothing of that finely done face. It's a wonder she is not signed. Did we identify her? Is she Nike?

Chalcedony includes a lot of stones, one of which is onyx. To make matters more complex, people use onyx to also describe stones of a color type, and agate that has been color-treated.

Haha now you've ruined yourself for collecting any cameos inferior to this one! It makes for a more manageable collection I would imagine... I too started with an above average specimen. While I do have below or average pieces, they are all of the tiny type on rings, earrings, and a bracelet that were less than $20/ea so that I can have some inexpensive casual wearable pieces I'm not as fussed about.

 

Oooh that looks nice, especially for when showing your pieces to a friend. I've discovered mine do not understand how a loupe operates! I have a pair of extremely nerdy lit magnifying glasses that I got for free off a production I worked on. They're fantastic when I'm cleaning one and need to be hands free, but I can't blame others for not being keen on wearing them. They are extremely Un-Cool.

I cannot believe your coincidence of luck! If we were writing this, that would be too on the nose! That is so unbelievable! I love the attention to adding details on this one. Definitely seems to be an artist that liked a lot going on in his compositions.

How many individual signed artists do you have examples from now?? I have to imagine for you and Bronwen it's almost too many to count. I have only 5...so lagged extremely far behind you all.

 

She should be one non-specific Muse, as provided by Bronwen's reference, In the Tassie impressions, starting at 3315.
Ops I thought chalcedony, onyx, and jasper were all similar, only with a gradual decrease in transparency, and I think this cameo is moderately close to onyx in transparency.

haha, if I really can't get a cameo I like and at a good price for a long time, I definitely have to get some normal but interesting ones. More importantly I can learn and enjoy the cameos shared by everyone here as well to imagine I can get one of them to scratch the itch.

 

I have cameos from 25 artists, mostly just single examples. I have 2 cameos from a few of those artists. I don't have triples from any artist. I don't have any cameos by the "biggies" like Morelli, Amastini, Girometti, Bissinger, Pistrucci, Odelli, Cerbera, Berini or the like. Maybe one day. Most of my cameos are unsigned, but still well-loved by me.

 

With that one as your first cameo, you certainly got a wonderful example. Come jump down the rabbit hole with us-- it is a lot of fun!

 

She is chalcedony; she is just not chalcedonyx nor sardonyx, terms which designate the color under the white (onyx) layer in a cameo. There really ought to be an accepted term for ones like this, where one layer is carnelian/cornelian in color, besides banded agate.

It easily gets muddled: Quartz>microcrystaline quartz>chalcedony. Chalcedony is translucent. Colors of chalcedony: white; pale blue; pale lavender; orange (cornelian) dark brown (sard); green (chrysoprase). Microcrystaline quartz that is opaque is called jasper.

Agate is not a mineral, it is a term used for chalcedony in various formations. The majority of hardstone cameos are cut in banded/layered/ribbon agate. The dendritic agates, those with spiky or leafy inclusions, do not make good cameos.

I cannot say for certain that the orange layer on your lovely lady was not achieved by dyeing, a practice so old the Romans were already doing it, but the stone looks natural to me. Hardstone cameos with a black or very red background layer have been dyed.

 

Definitely need to look into this. I have more different magnifying devices.

 

Un-effing-believable! Good on you. I never heard of this guy until you brought him along & now he has become a regular. Too weird, in a nice way.

 

I have representatives from 28 different hands that are clearly signed or, in one case where signing would not have been possible due to the fragility of the material, labeled. (One of them is contemporary, Aniello Pernice.) I have several others with attributions that are speculative, some more, some less so. The cameo of Alexey Olenin is one of these, but with the name Dobrokhotov attached by Dr. Julia Kagan of the Hermitage, most people wouldn't quarrel.

Like you, I do not have any of the really top tier cameo artists. They come along so rarely & sell for so much when they do, that they are quite beyond my means. But when it comes to cameos for the well-heeled grand touriste, I have, as an uncle of mine liked to say, an ample sufficiency, since I have more than 1 for a number of them. Luigi Michelini looked set to take over my entire collection for a while. Kept finding them right & left and now have 9. Mouhé & Schmoll are each in at 7.

 

Hear, hear! Some, whenever I handle them, I just have to check one more time for a signature because I can't believe someone didn't want their name on it.

 

Thank you. There is a luminosity to her. Just wish I could find out something, anything at all, about the person who cut her. The signature is quite clear, so it's not a matter of others going unidentified due to illegible scribble. There have to be others of this caliber out there.

 

Me, too! I still look, just in case I missed something. Now that I have this new magnifier, I will check again. It is amazingly heavy for a little gadget. I think the lenses are glass, not plastic.

 

I'm also guilty of doing this occasionally, but my collection is much smaller so quicker to reassess. It's so baffling what gets a signature and what does not.

 

I have 5 different, but 2 for King. My majority are unsigned but agreed, I love them all. The artistry is the important part for me. The signature is a fun bonus.

The breadth of your collections is astounding. In signatures, but also nationalities and materials and subjects!

The "top tier' are all hardstone, typically ensconced in eye-poppingly expensive mounts and unless one of those turns up with someone who thinks them costume, I think a very hard thing to afford indeed! I like to imagine I'd be at a place in my career where I could drop that kind of money on art but realistically I'll probably be looking at my investments instead. Which is entirely Not Fun At All. As Vector has said, I will also live vicariously though others for happiness.

 

I have found several citations for Francescangeli:


Fromm 1830:

From 1838:


From 1855:

From 1865:


From 1872, only a last name:



I did find this entry from Guida Monaci in 1881, listing him under a large heading, including Camei (both shops and studios):