ANOTHER McInnis Auction---SO MUCH to just look at....apparently a fairly

expensive collection of everything!!! Cameos (4), Jewelry, Porcelain, some furniture- but from what I saw mostly Oriental furniture....,some silver, many unique items.....I've not before seen such interesting and diversified things!!!!!!! Someone could apparently afford wonderful items!!!! AND I haven't shown the best....2 amazing Meerschaum pipes too!

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/325471_may-auction-extravaganza/





This one is as shown, but below it I tried to enhance the image in the middle to bring out what looks to me like maybe a profile roman image and a frontal partial image of a female image to the right of his face.....

ENHANCED.... ​

 

William Couper is new to me:

https://www.hirschlandadler.com/galleries/william-couper

 

Here's what I think is a portrait he did in the same format:

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/william-couper-carved-marble-plaque- 1142-c-cff4e09883

I am seeing what looks to me like an indication of radiance around the head & a star on the right shoulder, where a fibula would be. With that pretty boy face, I'm thinking this is Apollo rather than a portrait from life. I'm not convinced there's another face. More suggestively arranged smudges.

 

See auctioneers have it as Saint with Halo. I was thinking that if there is a second face there, partly obscured by the main subject, it looks to me more like a lion's face. If so, would have to consider St. Mark. But the overall look, with the band around the hair, still says Apollo to me.

 

I know zero about cameos but that green one is gorgeous.

 

The green one is molded glass, so not highly valued in the world of cameo collectors. But as a costume accessory, quite striking. I like that bottle green.

 

Starting price is $200. Where it goes, who knows. One shell as byne's disease, but the black and white "shell" is hard stone.

 

This has got to be one of my favorite lots:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/175182254_4-roman-terra-cotta-feet-in-sandals

 

For pure class:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/175182401_grouping-of-heissner-garden-gnomes-and-elves

 

The Medusa earrings are fun:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/175182450_grouping-of-gold-filled-cameos-stick-pins-etc

 

My grandparents had the gnome with the basket on his back and the mushroom in their garden. I remember it from when I visited as a child.

 

I've been watching that lot, too. The hardstone cameo has an inscription on the back. I asked McInnis to supply a better picture, which they did yesterday by adding it to the lot info. It reads Telsonia Villel or Vittel to me, with another word above it that I can't make out.

 

The multiple marks, many numbers scratched out, & a single written out name says German to me, so maybe have that in mind while trying to decipher.

 

Tedsona Vittel?

There's a Vittel water bottling company in the Vosges Mountains. It wouldn't surprise me if the name popped up on both sides of the border, especially given the history of the region. Some of my ancestors got the heck out of Dodge, as it were, and which nationality they were depended on year of birth.

 

That word looks kind of like Celestina to me, but not sure.

 

Good call!

 

Especially since the alternative is jewelry hunting. Miss the one piece of pottery, or if it turned out to be modern, and you might as well have stayed in bed. The jewelry odds are better.