Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

The Madonna is like those seen on religious medallions asking her to pray for us. May she look after you.

I once soaked a similar habille cameo. It loosened the grime, including the grime holding the stone in place, revealing that it was a rhinestone. To clean cameos for which soaking is inadvisable (this does not include lava) I use toothpaste & a soft toothbrush. Your girl looks like she might have Byne's?

 

Probably. I gently cleaned her following your advice...I didn't realize she was do dirty! The back of the cameo does not have the dryness. I guess I will let her dry out for a few days and use mineral oil on her...it has worked on two other cameos I have. Live and learn. I have to test the stone...the back of the stone is open on the cameo.

 

Bronwen, I louped and checked the stone with my Presidium. The stone is white topaz, and it is securely pronged in place. Should I oil her with mineral oil and let it sit overnight? She is not spotted like cameos with Bynes disease, I think she is dried out.

 

One of my favourite Madonnnas, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.
We call her the Madonna of the Rue du Bac (Paris), which is where she appeared to Catherine Labouré and where her chapel is.

https://www.lourdes-giftshop.com/bl..._7PAZBdzOCC8Budw0UnPOZsymu9vPxhF3_fkXEyZpbGEi

 

I wanted one that was only a pendant, not a brooch, and not a brooch/pendant combo. Thank you for this information!

 

I just wanted to be able to compare without going back & forth between pages:



Quite a difference, n'est-ce pas?

It almost looks as though the cutter left a haze of white on the background deliberately. Oil would probably make her look more 'normal'. You could do an inconspicuous spot test & see how you feel about the result, then oil further, or not. At the end of the article on Byne's on Cameo Times I show a cameo that seems to have been given this gauzy effect deliberately.

I don't oil because what passes for dust in NYC is already kind of greasy, although less bad as buildings are moving away from oil for heating.

 

Just think of what my great-grandmother had to put up with. Coal smoke. Everything was dirty before you even got it dry.

 

Including lungs....

 

I oiled her overnight. Seems she was just dry...what age/era would you put her at? The lady said she was gold-filled, but there are no marks. I do get tarnish when I clean her with a silver cloth. Thanks.

 

I did read that article....interesting about that gauzy effect!

 

She might be gold wash over silver. I'd put her mid 20s - mid 30s, based on both style of cameo & style of mount.

 

Thanks for the input! With some oddball search terms, I was able to come across a guide that mentions the mosaicist Benedetto Boschetti might have also worked in shell - or he sold items carved in shell, at least. Probably a stretch, but still pretty interesting. Curious if I'll come across that signature again, hopefully with a more distinct first letter

She's so pretty! And I love the setting.

 

Great researching, Sunny. And thanks for providing the link to the source. These tourists guides are the main way we know about cameists, particularly those who never worked in hardstone, so I try to keep a record of them. Very interesting that this one names the category as mosaicists & shell engravers, rather than as mosaicists and cameo engravers.

We know that the Schmoll family kept a shop and also that Charles Schmoll cut shell cameos, which were presumably sold in the shop. Michelini was another one who did both. I think it is not such a stretch to conclude that Boschetti was the source of your cameo, as cutter, as dealer, or as both. Think if only a dealer marking inventory, he would have written the name more clearly, making an artist signing his work more likely.

And too unlikely a coincidence that I read 'Boschetti'* without having seen the name before, and then you find that there was a Boschetti in the trade, prominent enough to have been listed in this guide among some famous names.

 

* Not strictly true. When I look at some of the lists I have saved for Rome in the 1860s, the name Boschetti does appear as a mosaicist. Nothing indicates Benedetto himself made cameos. But I have a beautiful hardstone cameo clearly signed 'Francescangeli', a name I can find only as a mosaicist. I imagine my cameo engraver was part of the same family who never got their own mention in the commercial guides.

 

Since it is labeled as Fidelity, the carver had a dog in mind for the animal, but it owes a lot to the Allegory of Innocence:



Cameos of St. Agnes sometimes look like this, except the figure has a halo. It's a pun: Agnes/agnus.

 

This could qualify for the Laughable eBoo thread, but I think readers of this thread will appreciate it more:

Museum Quality Lida and The Swan Carved Cameo Brooch/ Pendant 14k
Lida and The Swan (Castellani?)



If you have the time & the stamina, read the description for item # 336268252992

 

Oh dear, oh dear me!

"He listed it incorrectly", and she decided to continue that trend.

"When you see a piece like this you don't need to know much".That explains it.

"peace accross the globe". Cclearly a kind soul.

 

I got absolutely giddy trying to follow it all. And of course, as elaborate as the setting is, it doesn't look at all like Castellani.

 

Understandable.

Exactly! But then the cameo is not of Leda and the Swan either.
The setting could be German. It is beautiful work(wo)manship.

 

Might be worth watching if the seller is as clueless with values as he is with mythology!