Featured Help with glass cameo pendant...

can anyone help me out with some info about this little gem? 2” long and 1.75” wide

 

Hi Ashley. You already know it's glass. Looks like technically it's an intaglio, with the figure below the surface, but when you sell it, you may as well use the word cameo, or mention both. Meant to look etched but suspect simply molded. Others will have thoughts on this, as well as on age based on other features. The cameo itself could have been made any time from the 60s on.

 

I like it....I haven’t seen a intaglio like this before....

 

@Bronwen, does it or does it not....look like carving lines between the face and edge of the framing??? I'm not in the know for sure!! Thanks!!

 

And above her head?

 

I can't tell without touching it what is going on in those area, whether the glass is rippled or picking up tool marks that were left in the mold, but I am confident they do not indicate OP's piece is hand engraved. Intaglios have always been made by a process of grinding; cameos are done using tiny chisels & other tools for scraping. To make a mold for an intaglio you have to have a version of the design in relief, i.e., in cameo.

 

So what am I looking for to tell?? I will inspect and report back

 

I've got some intaglio glass costume pendants from the 60s, I think that's what this is. The better ones were actually hand engraved.

 

They might have been engraved; doubt it was by hand. And they certainly would not have been hand cut 'in the field', the blank area around the figure.

 

It was cheap enough to do: mass market glass was hand engraved here too. By which I mean done with a paw using a powered engraving pen/scribe.

 

We're trying to get a better idea of what the glass is like around the figure: smooth & level?; smooth & rippled; a little rough & irregular?... Things we can't tell from photo taken against a textured background without being able to touch.

 

Does this work like a pantograph, with the operator following a model? (Probably some other word than model, but think you get the idea, a 3D pantograph.)

 

The glass I'm thinking of - Caithness, for example - was basically freehand. Sometimes, they'd do the first few with a drawn on or transfered on pattern. I know what you mean about a pantograph type thingie.

Taking this wildly off topic, porcelain and china was and still is freehand decorated, although of course the more complex pieces cost far more to do.

 

Oh, and the nice thing about Caithness and other glass is that you can spot the individuality. An owl barrel vase, for example, may have essentially the same image, but each will have its differences.

 

That's it about anything made by hand, no two examples of the same subject by the same hand will be exactly alike in every detail. Now that there are getting to be really convincing resin pieces that look like shell cameos, one way to know is by finding another with the exact same design.

This necklace is by Tarina Taratino. Doubt they make the intaglios, just incorporate them in their designs:

I would say only slightly off topic, in the way a corollary is off topic.

 

This was just listed. They all seem to have that striated look in front of the face:

 

This clip was also posted in the last few hours. The coloring is right for shell, but we know better, don't we.



This is similar, but shell:

 

I shall go fish out my glass ones and post photos.

 

To me she always be "Ponytail Girl (Snipped) w/ Flower."

 

I think of her more as one of the ' shoulder corsage ladies', the one with a bow on top.