Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

She looks like she was done from a real human. The seller's price is a tad ambitious, unless he or she finds one of the lady's relatives with DEEP pockets and no common sense.

 

It is signed by [Pio] Siotto, whose workshop was near the jeweller's shop, at 97 Piazza di Spagna.



He seems to have specialized in portraits. I have never yet identified a work by him of any other sort. He advertised his portraiture services in English language tourist publications, so actively courted those customers.

I have 2 by him:




You will notice from these several examples that the carved frame around the edge of the cameo was a characteristic of his work.

 

During what time span was Siotto active in cameo carving? (Just curious.)

 

Roughly second half of the 19th century, contemporary with Tignani, Rosi, et al.



From: Cook's tourist's handbook for southern Italy, 1875

 

When I first saw her, I wondered that I had not seen #1647 as a cameo.



Still haven't, but here she is in glass:



Item 127954846847 on the Bay.

 

Because I'm an idiot, I'm going to ask, the photo with the numbers attached, is this what carvers used as their template for carving? If it's not, what is it used for?

 

Not in the least idiotic, just a resource you would probably enjoy exploring. Unfortunately, due to deaths & budget cuts, I don't think anyone is actively tending to it anymore & it has become even more awkward to use than it used to be.

The B&W pic is from the Beazley Archive at Oxford's Classical Art Research Center (CARC). They photographed the huge collection of impressions of engraved gems taken by James Tassie, catalogued by Rudolf Erich Raspe at the end of the 18th century.

https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/gems/James-Tassie

I most often start with the Index because I'm usually looking for images of a particular subject. When I find a promising entry, I enter the number into the search box & take a look at the plate. To learn more about impressions of interest I look at the corresponding text.

Unless your eyes are very good, the first thing you might want to do is to increase the image size. The default setting has become very small. The Index is in French, but so many entries are proper names, very similar in French & English, this isn't much of an issue. The Text is in both English & French. Raspe tends to favor Roman names over Greek, so the lady that prompted your question is listed as Minerva. Cupid/Eros (cupids/erotes) is under Amour(s). The catalogue dates to the time when the letter S, when it occurs in a position other than the end of a word, is written with a character that looks more like a lower case F Words starting with I or J are listed together.

[Sometimes the site is glitchy & you have to find a workaround. Requesting the Text for 1647 gets an error message; you can bring it up by asking for 1602.]

This should give you something to do while it's too hot to go outside.

 

Raspe compiled & organized impressions Tassie collected from sources ranging from the gem cabinets of the good & great to the modern work of his time, which included portraits he himself made. Tassie was in the business of selling these impressions, made in several different materials to suit the depth of one's pocket. The catalogue was produced as a way of informing the public of the wares on offer.

Collecting the plaster impressions became wildly popular, & you can still find whole specially made cabinets full of them, although sellers now generally seem to offer them individually. Tassie's success led to a number of competitors, most notably Paoletti. Some enterprising individuals who had shops, such as Francesco Carnesecchi, sold impressions as well as work from their own hands.

 

Data's mother!!!!!!!!!

 

THANK YOU. That's AMAZING. I'm going to try to find something similar to the agate one stolen in 2007. My wife also remembers a couple kissing. I don't remember that one.

 

That one cameo looks so much like Robert Louis Stevenson.

Debora

 

I'm not good at making out what faces look like under ebullient facial hair. They all look like they're from the same litter to me.

 

And who knew RLS had a soul patch?

 

Aarrgghh! I won't out them, but this auction house sells a lot of engraved gems and of course present what they have to say about an item as authoritative. Their one photo doesn't actually capture what they describe: Signed NIXAEP. But I don't need to be able to see it to know it is ΠΙΧΛΕΡ - PICHLER. Hard to know from a single photo, but also looks suspiciously like glass to me. Wonder if auction houses have started to use AI to write up items.

 

now that's a some finger lickin good soul !

 

It wouldn't surprise me. Hallucinations and silly errors included free of charge. And to think, all I ever included was some free cat fur.