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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mirana, post: 9903994, member: 79705&quot;]That is an absolutely stunning one wow! The same &quot;tide-lines&quot; too. It&#039;s interesting to see that feature because a lot of the ones I can find are polished, molded, or just too small/simplistic to see much from photos.</p><p><br /></p><p>John (Jean) Obrisset is a good starting place for what a confirmed molded one would look like. His, while beautifully done (I&#039;ll take several if anyone&#039;s offering), are all fairly shallow. <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72872/queen-anne-r-1702-1714-medallion-obrisset-john/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72872/queen-anne-r-1702-1714-medallion-obrisset-john/" rel="nofollow">V&amp;A Queen Anne</a>,</p><p>[ATTACH=full]497588[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>He also made multiples of course, as <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/193830" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/193830" rel="nofollow">The Met has a twin</a> and others have come up elsewhere. Here&#039;s one of Charles I.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]497589[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>(I&#039;m not at my computer with all my other photos so IOU on examples... )</p><p><br /></p><p>Mine has definite tool marks on all the components. The shell seems to chip in the carved groves and produces a tiny yellowing line and tiny yellow chips. I can see that too on the one you posted. The openwork has tool marks (drill points and blade marks) though it&#039;s been polished after the fact to smooth them down. She is probably a smaller piece than the one above and definitely more simplistic.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have another that I haven&#039;t posted. The cameo itself is helmet shell, but much like with many Whitby jet examples, it has tortoiseshell as the frame around it. It is open work, so has similar cuts to the one I posted, but also some groves cut on the surface of the piece.</p><p><br /></p><p>I could believe maybe a combo of work...pressing into a mold and finishing with carving? But I&#039;ve yet to find two of these frame-types that are exactly alike to confirm it. I haven&#039;t found two of the tort cameos that are exactly alike either, other than Obrisset&#039;s. Similar themes, though. I&#039;ve read tortoiseshell was popular for half-mourning....but then why do I find so many Bacchante? I&#039;d be interested to know the correlation!</p><p><br /></p><p>I think since it would take laminating of layers to get height, if you were planning on leaving the background surface flat, there would be wisdom to making it into a separate component to save time. Unless of course you were going to be extra and carve out a whole thing to the edges (wow again)!</p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for the insight on what the material is like in natural form. It took some reading for me to understand just where it was from and how it was viable because their shells are so different between species I couldn&#039;t imagine it![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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