Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Erin? If that circle goes with it. I don't recognize it, but my knowledge base is better for Victorian. Sorry.

 

Picked up these two today. i think the black one is glass and it has a c-clasp. Not sure what the other one is made of, but I think it's stone. It has a pretty bad piece broken off . I have a feeling the leafy branch isn't original to the piece, but meant to hide the chip.

 

The one that has lost a section of the background is Flora, cut in helmet shell, which can develop fine cracks over time from dryness & pressure from the bezel. When the background layer is very thin, as here, it is not unusual for some to break away. Sometimes these are salvaged by removing as much of the brown as possible without damaging the white, & then remounting, held with prongs in a custom setting. Another method is the one used here: hiding the gap with ornamental metal work. I'm rather fond of pieces that show someone has cared enough to spend the money to keep them in wearable condition. Here's one I have, broken on both sides:



What am I looking at in the third photo? Seems to be the same piece as first. Did they also reinforce/protect the remaining shell by having a section of some kind of stone cut or plaster molded to fit?

The other piece looks like a Czech glass cameo in a metal frame coated with black enamel paint to give the visual effect of carved jet.

 

Thank you! I love learning more about this kind of stuff.

The third picture shows the cardboard-like backing of the brooch. I think there might have originally been a metal one, since the cardboard seems out of place and kind of wedged in there. Some reddish resin or paint was applied to part of the cardboard to mimic the color of the shell, so that it would further conceal the missing piece.

How old do you suppose there are? I guessed that the shell one was from the late 1800s while the black one was around 1920s-1930s. What do you think?

 

Sounds like someone tried to do a home repair job without the expertise of kyratango & her 'kyratisation', then had a jeweler do cosmetic work from the front, leaving the card to give some protection from the back. Doubt it was ever covered in metal.

The black one I would put to the 30's. Harder to say about Flora, but think style of the frame would put her to the later end of her range, in the 19 tens.

 

That black one is almost certainly Czech, just in case no one else figured that out. The glass and the metalwork are inter-war Czechoslovakian. The other one...dunno.

 

Looks like we're on the same page.

 

Just showing off a new arrival.



Based on this scene from Orlando Furioso of Angelica and Medoro writing their names on the tree. I will be eternally grateful to a friend in Milan for the identification.



It is the only example of this subject I have seen. The cutter did not remain completely anonymous. Alas, I do not know whose initials those are. If that is a date below, it would have to be 1904, not 1704.

 

That siggy is pretty similar to mine

 

A good deal of similarity, but not the same, if I'm seeing yours correctly. It may mean more that they are around the same age, both in the same style of script. Forming the capital G as a large lower case g seems to have been an Italian habit.

May we see the obverse of yours?

 

Beautiful! One of my favorites so far.

 

[QUOTE="
May we see the obverse of yours?[/QUOTE]
It's the one in post 499. Probably mid century, setting is by LS Peterson Co.

 

It's the one in post 499. Probably mid century, setting is by LS Peterson Co.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I see, the one in post # 500. Taking the 2 photos of the signature together, think the first letter on yours is an E, as we both saw it then and as I can see it now if the horizontal line next to the down stroke is part of it. There is too large a gap in time and quality for the two pieces to be by the same hand, even if the letters of the initials are the same.

 

This is another one I think will exceed expectations:

 

Hi Fig.....I'm very much leaning towards a photographic brooch of a child........!

 

And I LOVE the 'glitter' around her.....put me in line behind Bronwen!!!!

 

Hi,
That fairy on the bat just blows me away. I think it is gorgeous and I swear that I would wear it.
greg

 

Ariel, from The Tempest.

 

Wow!!!

 

Thank you, @Aquitaine !