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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 429569, member: 5833&quot;]Thank you.&nbsp; She&#039;s quite small, but photographed like a champion.&nbsp; Funny thing is, within a few days of spotting this one on eBay, stumbled onto a shell cameo being offered - of course, for an astronomical price - on 1st dibs, signed by an engraver whose work I knew only from hardstone pieces.&nbsp; (Filippo Tignani.&nbsp; My avatar is by him.)</p><p><br /></p><p>The matter of signature identification is a ticklish one.&nbsp; There are sort of four categories of signatures: the legible knowns;&nbsp; the illegible knowns; legible unknowns; and the illegible unknowns.&nbsp; &#039;Known&#039; meaning the name is one that has been found written down somewhere.&nbsp; It takes time, effort &amp; usually some luck to get a handle on signatures other than the first group.&nbsp; Any such knowledge gives a collector or reseller an edge in their buying.&nbsp; You can understand why anyone other than a selfless scholar would be reluctant to give away the mysteries.</p><p><br /></p><p>I know someone who has been working very hard at building a database of signatures and trying to develop enough familiarity with styles to be able to recognize unsigned treasures.&nbsp; He scours auctions that have on line bidding, carefully examining photos for signs of an unnoticed signature or anything that is more valuable than represented.&nbsp; He has found some really great things.</p><p><br /></p><p>His dilemma is that he would like to monetize his signature database, make money from his scholarship, but if he does so, he is aiding his competitors in the market, thereby losing his advantage in buying.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Impressions of gems made by James Tassie and others preserve a record of any writing engraved on the obverse of a gem.&nbsp; Leonard Forrer&#039;s Biographical Dictionary of Medallists... is the go to source.&nbsp; It can tell you how someone signed, e.g., Capparoni sometimes signed with the 3 Greek letters kappa alpha pi.&nbsp; However, Forrer did not capture the names of anyone who never worked in something more durable than shell.&nbsp; He missed Filippo Tignani &amp; Luigi Rosi, even though both worked in stone well before his cut off date of 1900, signed legibly &amp; were well enough known to make it into guidebooks for tourists to Rome; presumably there were others who got by him.</p><p><br /></p><p>The guidebooks that have now been digitized for the Internet are a great source for names, and it is a major help in deciphering a signature to know what it could be.&nbsp; For example:&nbsp; <a href="https://archive.org/details/ahandbookromean07firgoog/page/n34" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/details/ahandbookromean07firgoog/page/n34" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/ahandbookromean07firgoog/page/n34</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I know of nothing published with photos or line drawings of signatures.&nbsp; It would amount to no more than a slim monograph, even if it were possible to have an example for every signature out there.&nbsp; Few people would want it at any price, even for free.&nbsp; There is little potential gain and could be a significant loss for anyone who published such material in any form, so...</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m expecting a cameo to be delivered today that&#039;s a (fairly) legible unknown.&nbsp; I have 3 other pieces with the same signature &amp; am bidding on a fifth.&nbsp; Think they say Mocchi, not a clue who this is.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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