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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 546995, member: 5833&quot;]An excellent question &amp; a good one to cover here.</p><p><br /></p><p>It seems I see these terms used some what inconsistently, but the fancy word for &#039;right facing&#039; is &#039;dextral&#039;; for &#039;left facing&#039;, &#039;sinistral&#039;.&nbsp; The inconsistency comes with whether it is used to mean the figure&#039;s &#039;proper&#039; left or right, or the viewer&#039;s.&nbsp; Think I see it used more often to express the viewer&#039;s point of view.</p><p><br /></p><p>I constantly see sellers including in their description the fact that it is a &#039;rare&#039; left facing cameo.&nbsp; It is true that they are less common than ones facing the other way, but they are far from rare, &amp; collectors do not place any value on the handedness.&nbsp; The pins on these two boards were not selected with any regard for direction the subject is facing.&nbsp; A quick scroll through gives you an idea of the frequency of sinistral presentations:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://[URL]https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://[URL]https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/" rel="nofollow"><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-ladies/</a></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://[URL]https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://[URL]https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/" rel="nofollow"><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pinterest.com/cameotimescom/cameo-portraits-of-victorian-gentlemen/</a></a></p><p><br /></p><p>A quick perusal will also show you that what are, if not quite rare, uncommon in the cameo world (surprise, surprise), are portraits of real women, while portraits of men, private citizens as well as public/historical figures, abound.&nbsp; This is something that does not seem generally to have been observed, so never see a piece touted, &amp; priced, on this factor.</p><p><br /></p><p>To throw another high falutin word at you, the chirality (handedness) of cameos is believed to be due to the handedness of the cutter, with sinistral profiles being the work of lefties.&nbsp; Although no one has looked in to this in a serious way, this makes the most sense to me.&nbsp; If you think which way you would naturally carve a profile, &amp; how it would feel to use the other hand, it will make sense to you too.&nbsp; Since the percentage of left-handers in the population is lower than right, lefties are really overrepresented among cameo portrait makers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Evidence for this hypothesis is all those pairs of earrings with a reasonably decent cameo on one, and a botch job on its mate, which is facing the other way.&nbsp; However:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]169484[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]169486[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]169488[/ATTACH[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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