Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

This just arrived in a job lot. It was a bit of a lucky dip as the sellers photos were so bad!. Only one and out of focus!
This is telling me it has some age but probably not English - rose at the top?. It tests as silver but not marked do maybe low grade?
Possibly had 5 danglies originally and also something in the two empty holes at the top.
Cameo looks moulded, not special and stuck onto something black but that’s the limit of my deductions!. Is she someone or generic?
Any help now welcome.
Cameo is about 3/4 inch tall.
Wasn’t sure if to put this in here or out in general population but I thought I’d start with the cameo.
Thanks

 

Opening bid 200 EUR. I think not.

 

She's got her head on backwards!
I think someone changed their mind as to which way she was going to look and ended up with the broken neck look. Interesting.....

 

My goodness! The setting is positively baroque & more interesting than the cameo. You are probably correct that a couple of stones or maybe pearls are missing at the top, but it's really not obvious at all. With the simple acid test, 800 silver will test positive. From statements I've seen in some eBay listings, some people do not know that a positive acid test does not guarantee sterling.

Don't think I've seen the cameo before, even though no doubt mass produced. She looks like a progenitor of the ubiquitous German headband girl. Is she glass?

I think the piece has great interest of its own. If stones or dangles are missing, it's not obvious. It otherwise appears to be in excellent condition. Today I bought what I think is a glass cameo, mainly because it was cheap & I'm curious.

 

A guy in drag? I see lots of cameos in which the relationship of turned head to shoulder is improbable. Getting it right separates the artists from the whittlers.

 

Thanks @Bronwen. I'll give it a thread of its own.

 

P.s She's glass according to Mary Contrary gem tester.

 

Sometimes artists unconsciously paint or sculpt their own likeness.
So I think we know what the carver looked like!

 

Was just hearing on the BBC sometime overnight that the painter Artemisia Gentileschi used her own face instead of a model.

 

She posed free; you have to pay models.

 

They have record of her complaining about it late in her career when she also enlisted some help in the studio. Program gave quite a bit of her bio. She must have been a handful. She had to be.

 

Is this early celluloid or something else (is celluloid easy to chip) ? The seller says the pin is 14k and the pin looks old.. but I'm not sure if I want it or not...
Thank you !

 

The back looks like it could be real/faux tortoise shell ........... https://www.google.com/search?q=tor...WRj3IEHV2tABkQ_AUoAnoECAsQBA&biw=1266&bih=726

 

Thank you, @Hollyblue ! I'm sorry for the poor tortoise..

 

This was made in 2 pieces, & from the way they are screwed together, & the findings also screwed directly into the material, I am virtually certain it is tortoiseshell. Beautiful, but sad, & completely illegal to sell in the US.

 

I totally agree.. but if you "forget" to mention the material, you can sell it.. I've seen ivory Netsuke for sale in an antique store in Portland.. not advertised as ivory, but if I remember right, the price was over $100..

 

Sellers of antique jewellery here are afraid to even breathe the word 'ivory'. Word has gone round that there is undercover enforcement & the penalty is steep.

 

That is breaking the law, pure and simple. If you "forget" to mention the material, you can NOT sell it!

And even if someone genuinely makes a mistake it still is breaking the law and the seller can be prosecuted. Ignorance is not an excuse to break the law.

 

Some cameos to show! I bought a nice lot of them, so I'll be sharing some over the next couple days. These are my favorites. None of them have hallmarks, and I haven't tested them yet. I think the first one has an unique back. The second one is signed, but I can't make it out.

 

Think the signature is yet again our friend 'Silz', Charles Schmoll.



These country scenes are a genre of their own. Often erroneously labeled as Rebecca at the Well, they seem to be free form compositions of the cameist's own devising; I have never seen any 2 exactly alike. They do draw from a vocabulary of standard elements. A gnarled tree seems to be obligatory. Other elements that can be used are: buildings, rustic or ruined; water, a stream (sometimes a little bridge) or pond; animals, goat, dog, geese, ducks, occasionally a horse; people, most often 1 or 2 women, sometimes a man or children. The scene on the first one is the exception that proves the rule; looks like the focus is a man rolling a barrel. Although competent, I have never seen one that met a high standard of workmanship.

I don't know the purpose of the extra piece of metal on the back of the first piece. The frame does not appear in need of bracing.

The Flora is lovely. Frame seems a bit battered. Clasp may have been replaced; hinge places it in 20th century. All 3 are cut in helmet shell.

More, more!