Featured Cameo with interesting surround

Bronwen has been kind enough to have a look at the cameo but I'd like some information on the surround if possible.
This just arrived in a job lot. It was a bit of a lucky dip as the sellers photos were so bad!. Only one and out of focus!
This is telling me it has some age but probably not English - rose at the top?. It tests as silver but not marked so maybe low grade?
Possibly had 5 danglies originally and also something in the two empty holes at the top.
Cameo looks moulded, not special and stuck onto something black but that’s the limit of my deductions!.
Any help now welcome.
Cameo is about 3/4 inch tall.
Thanks for looking

 

As KSW said, this piece debuted on the cameo thread. There we agreed the figure is most likely glass. Since it is usually easier to affix like to like, I would expect the background layer also to be glass. It is assembled of 2 separate pieces, unlike the sardonyx cameos it is meant to imitate, which are a single piece.

 

The back looks added, marriage. Flipped over, maybe it started as a heart?

 

I've seen a lot of pieces made that way, so it doesn't mean much. 1950s Victorian Revival, but beyond that ... dunno.

 

Very nice, K. Pretty folksy Historic Revival, with nice detail.

I suspect it speaks with a German accent, and has done so for over a century.
How old did Bronwen say the cameo could be?

I think the extra rings were for chains. This could have been part of a ca 1895-1905 necklace with multiple chains, with two festoon like swags on the sides of the pendant, going back up to the main chain from which the pendant was suspended by the top ring.
I hope my explanation makes sense.

 

This kind of thing, but different. (I hope that makes sense as well )

 

That old! Wow!.
That makes complete sense now I've seen a photo of what you mean. A picture speaks a thousand words and I think, as usual, you are spot on. I'll keep my eyes open for a broken necklace with pearls in it like that to marry up nicely with it to give it a second chance. Do you think it was likely to be pearls in the empty gaps?. Love your top necklace, stunning.

 

She didn't glass made to mimic sardonyx has been made since Roman times. However, this lady reminds me very much of the ubiquitous W. German headband girl. The age of the cameo is limited by the age of the hairstyle.

 

Could have been coloured glass, but if you want to put it on chains with pearls in them, similar colour pearls would look perfect.

Not mine, alas. Plucked it off google, so didn't post a link. Bad form, apologies.

That could be a century earlier, ca 1800, with that hairstyle. (For Brits, think lady Caroline Lamb.)
The Empire/Regency/Neoklassizismus hairstyle doesn't really correspond with the more elaborate surround. Maybe they used a cameo which was already antique at the time?

 

Do you make these words up to check if everyone is concentrating? Off to google.......

 

Of course!
The same period in three different countries, Empire-France, where the hairstyle was most popular, Regency-UK so more familiar to you, and Neoklassizismus-Germany, since the cameo is probably German.
The hairstyle was also worn in Germany, but I think the fashion started in France, so I included them just to be fair.

 

What do you think?. Be honest as it's easily taken apart if I've created a monster!.I couldn't get chains to hang right so used pearls. The chain is silver and real pearls. Unfortunately I don't have a stock of 19th pearls to use!. Necklace was as it is bar a dangle I removed and the other pearls came from a broken necklace. Just got to fill the empty holes and it's done!. I may change the clasp too as it's fiddly and may not be strong enough with the extra weight. The two pearls just above the pendant sit just on the collar bone. I put the purple in as it needed a little bit of colour.

 

So, just so I'm getting this straight, the surround is possibly German c1900 but the cameo could be Regency so early 1800s?

 

Uhmmm... the German girl is now in Teutonic overdrive? It is a bit complicated, as if you have three very different pieces of jewellery.
It looks quite crowded, heavy, I think the girl needs some air so she can breathe. The swags definitely need to be more loose, like... swags.

Maybe these two from my stash can help with inspiration. Bear with me, I photographed these just now, and it is getting dark.
First, Croatian/Austro-Hungarian silver and coral, with two swag chains on either side, attached to the main chains:



Second, Vienna 1920s silver filigree and garnet, three chains of graduating length on each side:

 

The surround is possibly German c1900.
I have no idea about the girl, cameos are not my forte. Bronwen said that the age of the cameo is limited by the age of the hairstyle. Since the hairstyle looks like ca 1800 Roman-inspired short hair with a jeweled(?) headband, that could mean ca 1800 for the cameo.

 

Hmm, back to the drawing board .I was struggling with the chains as they sit behind the cameo rather than to the sides. I'll see what I can do.

 

Trust me on this, it's not. It's more likely this girl was inspired by flapper fashion than by Caroline Lamb. Contemporary pretty ladies mass produced in man made material are a 20th century product. Late in the 19th you get all those noblewomen done in hardstone; before that cameos mostly follow neoclassical themes or are custom portraits of actual women.

 

You kept us waiting.... I knew you could say more about the cameo!
It didn't strike me as a flapper bob, but I am no expert on bobs. I even wondered if the girl was actually a boy.

That bring us to something that has bothered me from the start: It doesn't sit well in the bezel, and I have never seen a cameo in this folksy style German jewellery before. So my guess is it is a replacement, whatever its age.
I imagine the original 'stone' could have been a nice piece of faceted glass, either German or Bohemian. Red and green are traditional German folk jewellery glass colours, but it could have strayed from tradition to a daring purple or something else.

 

It does look as though some prying & bending went on. That would explain the seeming anachronism of this cameo in that setting.

 

Not among these, but guessing she is Czech.