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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 701900, member: 5833&quot;]For anyone else who wants to take a look, the necklace is about 42 mins. in.&nbsp; Appraiser I think got it pretty much right. I have only seen these in helmet shell with the usual coloring.&nbsp; She described this one as shell with a clear crystal backing, a sort of doublet.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]187251[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]187252[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>What I believe it to be is shell, with the background layer pared down as thin as it could be, backed by this lovely jasper (or rhodonite?), which shows through the translucent shell, giving the cameos the appearance of hardstone.&nbsp; An actual doublet.</p><p><br /></p><p>During the Regency/late Georgian period there seems to have been the revival of a trick that had been used in Germany several hundred years before of cutting cameos in the easier to work shell, then coating the extremely thin back with pitch or putting slate behind, as a quicker, cheaper way of producing cameos that look like sardonyx or nicolo.&nbsp; This clever artisan used a more interesting stone to give the effect of an even fancier cameo.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]187253[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]187254[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>You sometimes see these sold as &#039;oyster shell&#039;.&nbsp; There is no reason to think they are anything other than helmet shell, cut mainly or entirely in the white layer.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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