Featured 9ct on poor cameo

good eye Charles.........she's a happy girl.......& the gold !!!

 

Wwwoof !

More bad cameos please, quite entertaining actually

 

I fully regret not saving some of the examples I've seen but this came up yesterday...

 

Oh, that’s an oldie but a goodie
Somewhere buried in the cameos thread @Bronwen you entertained us with a string of shockingly bad cameos that I can remember nearly made me spit my coffee out. I must go and look.
Her legs……??

 

IMO those cameos were made by young apprentices still learning the basics and they were not able to make the spatial planning on the cameo base in the way so that the proportions of the face or the body are kept. And then, once made, why not sell them, probably at a heavy discount but still there were costs related to them, material and labour, that had to be paid back. If I were the master of the workshop, I would think in that way. Furthermore, there is some appeal in the ugly images, too.

 

I bet the original buyer bought them for the literal giggles. The Museum of Bad Art exists for a reason.

 

Cameo carving gets less skillful as they fall out of fashion in 20th c. The worst ones tend to be on costume and lower grade jewelry. So yes, they had worth but they were the budget option carving. I imagine time had a lot to do with it too. Carvers paid for quick output, not artistry.

They do sketch the image on the surface so I'm guessing if you're not that great an artist then your problems begin at the beginning.

 

To reprise some other favorites:

 

That last one pfffft! (beans for three meals a day for both lady and horse!)

 

oh my! What collection.

 

Fortunately it is only a collection of photos.