Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

@Bronwen
Bravo! That’s a very profound study and well digging! Now that you brought it up, I’m the one who acquired this Ariadne, which I knew the dealer marked it wrong and suspected it was by Filippo Verge. Also I was fond of the theme and the dealer offered a pretty good deal so… Anyway, here’s the photo of it. It accompanied me through my wedding, so it’s kind of special to me. This Ariadne was previously private collection of a professor in English and poet specializing in Greek mythology. She probably acquired this cameo as souvenir during her field trip to Sicily.


I’ve studied the above cameos mentioned by @Bronwen before made the purchase. One thing that intrigues me is that, the Sotheby’s Antinous was executed with much deeper cut than the others, especially on the drapery, not to mention the hair lines. Which kind of convinced me that it was made by Antonio. Yet the carving did yield a sense of roughness with the relatively bold, indelicate cut comparing to his peer masters. It makes me wonder if it’s a unique style adopted by the Verge workshops.


This Antinous, though signed Verge, has relatively shallower and more gentle cut than the previous. Yet if observing closely, the way hair lines and grape vines was cut do share similarities with the former. I’m guessing it might be some of Filippo Verge’s earlier works under Antonio.


The reason why I suspect my Ariadne was made by Filippo Verge is actually after seeing @Bronwen share of her Psyche. The incised mark looks identical, and the execution of the profile, the nose, the lips, and the similar shallow flowing cut resemble each other. Yet this Ariadne was cut with a strong sense of sculptural modeling by creating deep perspective with its deliberately shaped high relief, casting light and shape. It’s especially strong when put on. Therefore I guess the carver is well skilled yet deliberately kept the cutting that way.

My hypothesis is that Filippo Verge perhaps put a lot effort into commissions in his earlier life, and in later career, during the late Victorian period, he started to produce more affordable cameos for tourists as souvenirs to sustain and develop the workshop, and consequently adopted new carving tools as well, which could explain the shift in style of the signature.

 

Of the 16 cameos signed Vergé in my photo files, there is only one I feel confident is by Antonio:



This is a whole other order of work. The remainder are white on black or dark brown, single figures that were executed repeatedly by Roman gem engravers of the second half of the 19th century: Iris, Psyche, Clytie, Ariadne, Apollo Belvedere, Antinous, Menelaus.

 

Magnificent piece of art! I would also certainly agree the attribute to Antonio, perhaps only by the appearance of this early selection of stone. This type of sardonyx and bloodstone certainly circa dates to late 18th C, and makes the Verge sign convincing. I’m more fond of the classical rendering of faces and profiles therefore my main collection falls into that type. But the human anatomy is another diamond in glyptic word, that’s for sure.


I find it very interesting that I can still see the familiar clue in this scenario cameo comparing to the Sotheby’s Antinous. The subtle and softness of anatomy was well expressed on the two figures, especially the muscle and the belly, indicating the fully capability of executing smooth rendering. Yet when I looked at the drapery, the same feeling that I witnessed from the Sotheby’s Antinous came back. Notice here, the fold of the drapery is merely expressed by two bold, rough cut of lines. The same lines can be seen on the hair and drapery of Antinous. It seems unusual to me because comparing to Antonio’s peer the contrast is so strong. For example, this famous cameo by Pichler, collection of the MET, shows much gentler, smoother, natural transition in the lines of drapery. Or this scenario cameo made by Girometti, also collected in MET, showed a slight different way of executing but expressing the same idea. The point is, I find it interesting that Antonio seems to deliberately choose this style of cutting in my personal perception. It looks like he wants to emphasize lines and impressions instead of like most of his peers masters chose to focus and rendering on the expression of volume, light and shadows. I wonder if he was influenced by the rising Impressionism art of that era for the similar emphasis of the manipulation of lines.

 

The piece by Antonio appears to be an adaptation of one of the Poniotowski gems, & the majority of them are very stylized. See:

https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/B73F949F-673F-4B3E-9341-976B77A50BC5

 

And yet notice how unnaturally Priam's cloak sticks out unsupported behind him and the folds are indicated by triangles. We cannot know whether all the work on a given piece is by the hand of the master, or whether some of it was assigned to an advanced apprentice.