Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Definitely French eagle 18k mark & a teeny little lozenge shaped maker's mark that we're never going to figure out.

You're correct that the material is queen conch. I don't recognize the scene. Could be after a painting which @PepperAnna or @mirana will succeed in identifying. It does fit in with what seems to be a genre of parents, or mother alone, saying farewell to a son, with the ubiquitous country village behind.

Pretty sure the mount is decades newer than the cameo.

 

Oh interesting, I hadn't thought about the mount being newer than the cameo! Also the gold didn't test as 18K for me which is odd, I'll have to try again. Thanks for the info as always

 

Still not acid testing as 18K, only 14K- how strange!

 

I have a beginner's gold testing kit which I never began to use, so I'm no expert, just raising questions someone more knowledgeable might ask. Do you use a testing stone? Where on the mount are you testing? I think a Frenchman or woman would be appalled to find out their country was producing gold jewellery of a fineness no better than the US!

 

I do find it bizarre! I use a testing stone, I even have two bottles of 18k acid and they ate through the scratches. I scratches the frame, pin and trombone clasp. It's not that easy to get access to and xrf machine unfortunately.

 

Anyone want to talk Tortoiseshell? It was a material I didn't realize cameos came in, until I read Rowan's book. I was fascinated with the old work immediately, but it seems to be even harder to find cameo examples of than in ivory. Both having similar laws and also lots of faux plastic which aids in mis-identification, of course. When they come up for sale, of course they are very far out of my range.

Then I managed to find and acquire this mis-identified antique set of pendant and earrings:



You can see the unpolished material cut out on the back of the pendant, I'm guessing to let light through? There are also the tell-tale bug bites, tool marks, drill cuts, etc. The pendant is a huge 3.5" (8.89 cm) long and the whole set swings when moved.



For a good look at it, I'm including one of the earring bacchante who thankfully came off after gentle clean loosened her old glue, so I could re-attach her properly.



I found a similar earring set, with the same top design and similar flowers to the pendant here. They said their source ID'd it as 1820/Georgian, but the source doesn't exist anymore. I was thinking these were more mid-to-late 19th c. when this stuff was reported as popular, but I'm still trying to read more on the subject.

The pendant came on a more modern braided cord with 14K clasp, but I'm thinking it originally probably had a matching tortoiseshell chain like this locket at The Met and other examples ?

Anyone else have cameos in tortoiseshell, or seen some they liked that they could share? I'd love to see more of them!

 

I really have seen very few of them over the years, always for big prices. Tortoise is even more stringently regulated than ivory & as the owner of 2 fine chelonians I'm squeamish about the material.

So, no tortoise for me, but I do have this:



A French version of Wedgwood's cameo. It has a slightly different motto: VOILA UN FRERE, shades of Ecce Homo.

 

Now there's a Grail for sure! The original Wedgwood of that image is amazing. This piece even more so for being a French version in the apt bloodstone! I love it. I don't think I'll ever have a chance to own an original OR variant.

You literally own 2 sea turtles?? How and where?! I can only visit sea turts lol.

Obviously, I do not like modern/new material of this type. The pre-cites, very antique is all I would ever be interested in, in any of these materials.

 

That would be something. You'd need a tank the size of my apartment. I have 2 semi-aquatics: a western painted turtle & a surly beast that's a cross between the ubiquitous red ear & a yellow belly.

 

years ago I saw a taxidermy hawksbill in a BC auction.........
well, I more than just saw it......

 

I got this several months ago in a multi-piece auction lot. I was interested in the other two pieces in the lot, and assumed it was a resin cameo. When I got it in hand, I realized it might be tortoiseshell. Thoughts?

I also have another piece that is likely tortoiseshell, but I don't have a pic and am not at home.

 

I don't think the striations in the cheek say shell.....
my 1st thought would go to amber.......but............ I'm still learning here !

 

Oooh that's a likely canidate I'd say! The little I've read talks about these pieces being formed by heating the material and sticking layers together to get a thickness for the carver. When carved, some pieces show a sort of wave pattern from the natural growth. This page talks about a "tide-line" pattern that can show on aged shell (paragraph above the last pictured box; also info about polishing pieces). That might be what we see on your lady's face. There's also some yellow carving deposits in her crevasses that I've noticed my pieces have after cleaning, because it's just how the material looks after being carved. Can't tell if it's debris or not until cleaned though.

This page on telling real from types of faux tort picks is really thorough and might give you more investigation angles, especially with UV.

I'd love to see more pictures when you get a chance! Maybe we can see a good tort pattern. She's definitely carved, whatever she is. I like her a lot!

 

This was a flea market find this weekend (along with 110 blu rays). The seller wanted $2. But, took a dollar.

It must be plastic. But, it's so unique.

If anyone has an idea where this might have been sold, please let me know. I figure some sort of traveling ministry.

 

Agree with your assessment of plastic. I've seen it before. Google "cameo praying man" and see more of the same.

One sold some time ago on Poshmark for $10.

https://poshmark.com/listing/Praying-Man-Cameo-Brooch-Pin-Vintage-61d36343ab62c5788237bfb2

There's one for sale on ebay for $11.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/25660338681...FUY2Js3skas9R0mgz7zz7WdTo=|tkp:Bk9SR5761s24ZA

 

Where did you find it? Oh, you don't mean that kind of where, do you?

Itinerant preacher or Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show?

 

I'm still pondering this. I do not have tortoise in my cameo collection. I did once have some tortoise hair combs around. And this summer had the opportunity to see & feel a partial sea turtle shell. The stuff we call tortoiseshell I think is a keratin coating over the bones. On my turtles this covering corresponds to scutes, peels off in the exact same shapes. On the sea turtle there was a good sized stretch of uninterrupted material covering the entire back, and this was not a terribly large specimen.

Tortoise can be heated & pressed into shapes. The way so many of these cameos are assembled of a background layer with a separate figure makes me think many of the figures are molded rather than carved.

This I think was carved:

 

I look up everything after I buy it. For some stupid reason, I didn't do this. THANK YOU!

It's strange. But, obviously mass produced.

 

I've seen this one come up pretty often on eBay. I always assumed it was a very specific preacher, and though there are plenty of famous ones, I also just assumed it had to be a large enough gathering that would wear an image of him instead of Jesus or Mary, etc. I did not bother to look up my guess until right now and...



.....well. I think I might be right. Joseph Smith.



Any other famous preacher guesses?

 

That is an absolutely stunning one wow! The same "tide-lines" too. It's interesting to see that feature because a lot of the ones I can find are polished, molded, or just too small/simplistic to see much from photos.

John (Jean) Obrisset is a good starting place for what a confirmed molded one would look like. His, while beautifully done (I'll take several if anyone's offering), are all fairly shallow. V&A Queen Anne,


He also made multiples of course, as The Met has a twin and others have come up elsewhere. Here's one of Charles I.



(I'm not at my computer with all my other photos so IOU on examples... )

Mine has definite tool marks on all the components. The shell seems to chip in the carved groves and produces a tiny yellowing line and tiny yellow chips. I can see that too on the one you posted. The openwork has tool marks (drill points and blade marks) though it's been polished after the fact to smooth them down. She is probably a smaller piece than the one above and definitely more simplistic.

I have another that I haven't posted. The cameo itself is helmet shell, but much like with many Whitby jet examples, it has tortoiseshell as the frame around it. It is open work, so has similar cuts to the one I posted, but also some groves cut on the surface of the piece.

I could believe maybe a combo of work...pressing into a mold and finishing with carving? But I've yet to find two of these frame-types that are exactly alike to confirm it. I haven't found two of the tort cameos that are exactly alike either, other than Obrisset's. Similar themes, though. I've read tortoiseshell was popular for half-mourning....but then why do I find so many Bacchante? I'd be interested to know the correlation!

I think since it would take laminating of layers to get height, if you were planning on leaving the background surface flat, there would be wisdom to making it into a separate component to save time. Unless of course you were going to be extra and carve out a whole thing to the edges (wow again)!

Thanks for the insight on what the material is like in natural form. It took some reading for me to understand just where it was from and how it was viable because their shells are so different between species I couldn't imagine it!