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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;PepperAnna, post: 4434885, member: 17332&quot;]I came across this cameo today and thought everyone would enjoy both the subject and the carver&#039;s signature (Ludwig Friederich Walther).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]380235[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>It is up for auction at Bertolami Fine Arts with an estimate of 6,000-8,000 GBP. I wish I could win the lottery! The auction listing states:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;This large hardstone cameo of the Centaur with Cupid (Allegory of the invincible strength of Love) is engraved by Ludwig Friederich Walther (1757-1817), with his signature in Greek. The stone is mounted in a Georgian gold ring, c. 1780. Missing on the figure and a crack in the stone. This cameo can be identified as a gem which was commissioned by &quot;the equerry von Crailsheim&quot;, i.e. the baron Alexander Hannibal von Crailsheim (c. 1740-1816), chamberlain at the Brandenburg-Ansbach court, personal master of the stable of the duke, and which he had set a ring, which became before 1793 the personal ring of an important member of the Hohenzollen family, Christian Friederich Karl Alexander (1736-1806), last margrave of Beyreuth and Ansbach. The margrave was a well-known amateur of horses and of love. About the carver of the gem, engraver Walther, the centaur cameo is one of his few gems attested in contemporary literature, documented by 1793 as one of his masterpieces. It seems that the material used for this gem is a rare type of fossilized wood, found from 1767 onwards in Rodach - north of Coburg- and exploited by the Walther family until it was exhausted in the late 18th century. It becomes a stone, comparable to an agate. The motif of Centaur with Cupid is copied from a 2nd century A.D. (Hadrianic) marble statue (from Borghese coll. than to Louvre coll. in Paris). This subject was engraved twice by Giovanni Pichler, the last one carved before 1782.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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