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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ulilwitch, post: 3282119, member: 9773&quot;], post: 3278782, member: 5833&quot;]You&#039;ll be sorry you did!!!!</p><p><br /></p><p>All I can say is WOW! You are truly amazing.</p><p><br /></p><p>It might be possible to sort of assign relative values to pieces, but &#039;true value&#039; doesn&#039;t apply to anything in this world, since &#039;value&#039; comes down to human opinion/belief &amp; willingness to exchange one thing regarded as valuable for another.&nbsp; This is a very epistemic can of worms you have opened.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Think we can agree that fineness of execution is a minimal criterion &amp; that we look for the same things in a cameo that we look for in a drawing or a sculpture when it comes to execution.&nbsp; In the second cameo, where is the part of the left arm that should show through the kithera strings?&nbsp; There is a disembodied left hand holding the instrument.&nbsp; Anatomical correctness is always something to look for.</p><p><br /></p><p>Material.&nbsp; Are hardstone cameos the only ones that can qualify as art?&nbsp; Are other materials such as shell, coral &amp; lava too soft &amp; therefore too easy to work to require the same level of mastery and too fragile to be seen as gems?</p><p><br /></p><p>Method.&nbsp; Does all the work have to be done by hand?&nbsp; Is computer guided ultrasonic cutting allowed?&nbsp; I would be interested in seeing the findings on the second brooch to get some idea of age.&nbsp; It looks fairly new to me, so possibly done using more modern methods.&nbsp; Aqui&#039;s delicacy makes me question how it was made.</p><p><br /></p><p>Level of difficulty.&nbsp; Compared to multi-figure full scenes, these ladies are relatively simple.&nbsp; Does that bar them from being art?&nbsp; Or can quality of execution make up for that?</p><p><br /></p><p>Creativity.&nbsp; Most cameos are copies of works in other media, or of intaglios, sometimes intaglios of works in other media.&nbsp; Does originality of composition matter to this question?&nbsp; La Citerista, the Kithara Player originates with a fresco found at Herculaneum.&nbsp; Finds there &amp; at Pompeii were very influential on artists of all types.&nbsp; Giovanni Pichler engraved an intaglio of this little dancer.&nbsp; Santarelli, who engraved the top cameo (yes, cracked right through the figure) may have copied from an illustration of the fresco or from one of the Pichler gem or from another cameo. </p><p><br /></p><p>The second one most probably derives from the first or another like it; it&#039;s a widely replicated design.&nbsp; On this one the hands have been repositioned to get a good grip on the instrument, not to play it.&nbsp; The hair has been changed to flowing tresses.&nbsp; Are the changes for the better?&nbsp; Does this one score a point for originality?&nbsp; Would faithfulness to the original fresco matter?</p><p><br /></p><p>Subject.&nbsp; Can only &#039;arty&#039; subjects qualify as art?&nbsp; Among all those portraits of beloved husbands &amp; wives, fathers &amp; mothers, do any of them surpass competency?&nbsp; Portraits cut by Tommaso &amp; Luigi Saulini are treated (priced) as though they are art.&nbsp; Do they deserve to be on artistic merit, are they so superior to many others that do not get the star treatment?&nbsp; Is the added value simply in the presence of a known signature?&nbsp; Here we get to a bugboo of mine about why a signed average piece will sell for more than an unsigned superlative one.</p><p><br /></p><p>I prefer the cleaner, crisper lines of the first cameo to the billowing gauziness of the second (is she standing on her veil?), even though when you look closely you have to wonder where her right arm has got to.&nbsp; I dislike these unnatural orange stones that seemed to come into vogue late in the 19th.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure I would grant either of them the status of Art, not compared to other pieces to be found in the glyptics world, including some of Santarelli&#039;s other work, so it comes down to personal preference.&nbsp; (I&#039;m not giving any weight to the settings, which is clearly an unequal contest or to the damage to the first one.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Aren&#039;t you sorry you asked?[/QUOTE]</p><p>All I can say I[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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