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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 9496469, member: 5833&quot;]Welcome, cphammer, &amp; thank you for sharing your gorgeous piece with us, also for the pdfs of the Art-Journal&#039;s report on The Court of the Designers.&nbsp; We are always looking for documentation of who was working, where &amp; when.&nbsp; In this case the reporter seems to have been rather careless, perhaps rushed.</p><p><br /></p><p>As Figtree has already shown you, it is (Edouard?) Guyetant, not Guyelant.&nbsp; He was the successor to Michelini, I surmise, not artistically as a gem engraver, but in taking over Michelini&#039;s Paris shop.&nbsp; It is as a shop proprietor that he put his name on the Met&#039;s Lebas cameo.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure we can rely on the A-J&#039;s description of him as an artist.&nbsp; Dealers also displayed their wares at these exhibitions.&nbsp; I think Guyetant was the seller, not the author, of your cameo, which may have been sold unset.&nbsp; I have more documentation of 19th century gem engravers working in Rome than for ones in Paris, but Guyetant does not appear in any list I have of engravers.&nbsp; Based on the little bit we have, I suspect he did not discourage the idea that he was the <i>incisore</i> for promotional purposes, but that he could be found in some of the same sources where he is missing from the <i>graveurs</i> if one looked for sellers of objets d&#039;art.</p><p><br /></p><p>Luigi Michelini, who was himself a prolific cameo cutter in shell, originally had a shop in Rome.&nbsp; Sometime 1829/30 he moved to Paris, setting up again as shopkeeper &amp; resuming his cameo cutting.&nbsp; He came under the tutelage of Girometti, who taught him how to work hardstone, a skill he only mastered in his later years.&nbsp; It was certainly not he who &quot;founded in Paris this refined Roman art.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;Schmall&quot; mentioned in the A-J&#039;s write up of the Court of the Designers is surely Charles Schmoll, about whom you can find more info in this thread and in the one about <a href="https://www.antiquers.com/threads/cameo-signature-help-needed.38228/page-3#post-634189" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.antiquers.com/threads/cameo-signature-help-needed.38228/page-3#post-634189">cameo signatures</a>, where you will also see Bissinger, not Bessinger.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am so tantalized by the description that follows of a clock by Stanger that has a cameo face &quot;upon which each hour was indicated by an exquisite <i>spirituelle</i> draped female figure, soaring in a circle...&quot;&nbsp; I have no doubt these were the so-called Hours of Raphael.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]447754[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The Apa workshop has made cameos like clock faces with the Hours.</p><p><br /></p><p>Although in the later 19th - early 20th centuries there was a fad for cameos of what I think of as noblewomen, who seem to be fantasy creations of elaborate hair &amp; jewels &amp; veils, yours feels like a portrait.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know that we&#039;ll have any luck with an ID, but calling [USER=17332]@PepperAnna[/USER] &amp; [USER=649]@bluumz[/USER]</p><p><br /></p><p>The mount is glorious.&nbsp;&nbsp; Have you scoured it for the itty-bitty marks of the French goldsmith?&nbsp; It strikes me as being later than the cameo itself.&nbsp; And have you examined the cameo carefully for any signature engraved on the front?</p><p><br /></p><p>To have any real idea of its market value, you would need to have the gold &amp; diamonds appraised.&nbsp; The greater part of the sale value would lie there.&nbsp; The Guyetant inscription &amp; the fact that the Met has one like it are also selling points.&nbsp; To my annoyance, quality of engraving often doesn&#039;t count as much as these other things.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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