Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

This is another one from my grandmother’s eclectic charity shop collection. The frame is silver with marcasites. I assume she is the Virgin Mary and she seems nicely carved. Any ideas how old it may be?

 

Yes, Mary, in a very traditional presentation.



Does she have a bit more of a face than photo captured? She is nicely carved, not spectacular. Mid-20th century, either side of WWII.

 

The face does lack definition. Definitely not a spectacular piece, as you say, but nicer than the monkey-face ladies that seem to abound, LOL!

EDIT: Oddly, the photos appear more sharp when viewed on my phone (via the antiquers website). When viewed on my laptop, they are a bit blurry.

 

I don't have the right language for it, but think it has to do with seeing the same size photo on screens of 2 different sizes. Not sure if 'pixellated' applies here, but imagine the image as an assemblage of color dots on a table top, then imagine what you would have to do to spread them out to fill a larger space & how that would look.

 

Yo! @komokwa ! Let's get that party started. 10,010 views as of this writing.

 

@Bronwen HELP!!!

I bid on and won this lovely cameo at a local auction. I mentioned it earlier in this thread. She’s so beautiful and I was so happy to receive her yesterday! I determined from the latch clasp and the hinge style, as well as the style of carving, that she’s likely from 1910/1920-ish.
There were some dirt specks on her so I took a soft toothbrush and slightly dish-soapy water and gave her some gentle brushing. I made the mistake of holding the cameo with my finger and thumb at top and bottom and during the cleaning, I felt a tiny, I don’t know, shift, I guess. I thought maybe the cameo had shifted slightly in its frame but then again I thought maybe I had imagined it. Anyway, when I was done and dried her off I see what appears to be a crack in her face! The crack does not go through to the back at all. Is there any way I can minimize the appearance of it? (ie: Lighten it so it's less noticeable? Maybe so dilute lemon juice on a Q-tip?) I'm so upset! I didn't spend much but she was something I want to keep and wear, not resell. Thank you for any suggestions.



It has a very unusual bale that swivels! Here are some photos of the hardware.

 

She has a begining of Art Nouveau vibe IMO!
The system is around 1910 I think

Beautiful girl, well carved and facing you

Waiting for Bronwen's specialist opinion, I'd say she had an internal crack before, which became apparent with water absorbed...
Hope it will disappear when thoroughly dried, if the water wasn't dirty from the cleaning

 

That seems probable... and also, since bluumz felt the shift while washing it, it's possible that a previous crack opened up a little more. However, since it's not all the way through to the back that is good.

How long ago did you wash it, @bluumz ? Kyratango is right that it might take a while to completely dry and the crack may be less visible then.

I'm very sorry to hear about it!

 

Actually, I went back up to post #648 where you posted an image of this cameo before, and I still see the dark streak in that spot. Here is the photo taken from that post.

 

I did the gentle soapy water toothbrushing for approximately 20 seconds, gently towel-dried it, and observed there were still a few dirt spots (I noticed no crack at this point). Then I repeated the process, and there was the dark-ish crack.

EDIT: Yikes! I must be blind, don't know how i missed it! Frankly, I'm still glad I bought it (got a very good price) and I feel so relieved that I didn't cause the damage. My cleaning probably just made the carving whiter and the dark-ish crack more apparent to me. Still wondering how I can lighten the crack...

 

Hm.... so the dark area in the auction was not a crack? It still could have had a crack there. It would have been visible if you had held it against a bright light and looked through it. Many shell cameos have those sorts of cracks. Don't know whether you noticed my re-post of the dark area from your earlier photo, since we were posting at the same time.

We'll wait for Bronwen about possible remedies...

 

@Figtree3
Thanks so much, I edited my post to address your info!

 

Ok! Actually, it's likely that lots of us have bought things that had small defects we didn't notice. I've done it... that is one reason that I rarely buy jewelry online any more, since I can be very un-observant.

 

Thanks, fig, for bringing that pic forward. It was the first thing I was going to check. Even if it is a hairline, it is not fresh. If it were, it would look whiter, not browner. Suspect what was felt was exactly what was first thought, a slight shift in the setting. (As a side note on that, as long as the cameo is in no danger of falling out, I think a bezel setting that is ever so slightly loose is preferable to one that is snug. The combination of drying with age & relentless bezel pressure is what I believe causes shell cameos to develop multiple parallel hairlines the way some of them do.)

If you cannot feel it when you drag the edge of a fingernail over it, more likely to be just a natural part of how the shell formed. It's a mollusk. What d'ya want, perfection? In your next to last photo, where some light shines through from behind, I see no evidence of a fissure.

Natural: nothing you can do will change it. Damage: anything you do more likely to cause additional harm. You did not notice it when you were looking her over with an eye to buying; no one else with an eye to admiring is going to notice at all. It is not affecting the integrity of the piece. Wear her, go out & be admired, both of you.

 

Addendum: It stands out now because you removed the grunge around it. It is going to read to the casual glance as shadow.

 

Thank you, Bronwen, I am feeling so much better about it and will wear it with pride.

But would it be a big no-no to try a little diluted lemon juice to see if it'll lighten a little?

EDIT: And no, I cannot feel the crack at all with fingertip or nail.

 

I wouldn't. I don't think it can help, as I believe the brown to be the same material as all the rest & not a stain. There is the chance it would change the texture of the surface so that at some angles it would catch the light differently & only draw attention to that area. If you're determined to try, you don't need me to tell you to go about it carefully, maybe first testing a small spot on the back to make sure what you're using isn't out & out corrosive. If not, start with a small section where it is faintest down on her neck. If it gets a result you like... If you try, let us know the outcome. Before lemon juice, you might try toothpaste.

 

Good! Another thing I hadn't thought of is that most cameo cracks that I've seen were in the thinner background area. I'm sure they could crack anywhere, but you don't see that as often. -- Now we can all relax.

 

Another excellent point. Conch quite typically shows one or more darkened striations in the white, not so common in helmet shell. If she were mine, I'd put her in a little water with a dab of dish soap & let her soak overnight, then see if a soft toothbrush could take off those little pockets of grunge caught in her décolletage.

This is an extreme case & I have edited the photo to accentuate it, but conch can have lines like this that are not cracks:



A quick & dirty shot of one in my collection that has the same sort of streak through the cheek:

 

As others said, odds are it was already there and with any luck letting it dry for a day or two will help.