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Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Discussion in 'Jewelry' started by Bronwen, Dec 20, 2017.

  1. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    Funny, I thought the same thing as I scrolled...that the Midnight Tiara was most interesting looking. Then I thought, it probably has less ice and if I'm gonna pick one, it should be the one most financial advantageous. :hilarious: Clearly I'm not fantasizing in the right way.
     
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  2. PepperAnna

    PepperAnna Well-Known Member

    A belated welcome back, Mirana!
     
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  3. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    Thank you! :oops:
     
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  4. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    I ran across some of Richard's work again so came back to this cameo. Were you able to get an Antiquer with a Facebook account to aid in contacting that history group? Maddening how there's no contact on their page. I've never had a FB account either...

    The photography was worth a look! Richard was definitely a character. Several of them. I enjoyed him dressed as The Hopeful Lover and The Disappointed One, as well as The Necromancer!

    Being banned from The British Museum too for fighting. He was very busy it seems. Albert was probably exhausted. :hilarious:
     
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  5. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    If anyone has acted as FB emissary they have not let me know & no one from the historical society has been in touch. It dawned on me just recently I have a friend who is an active FBer who would probably not mind making contact on my behalf. Must ask her.

    Funny how things in plain sight can be overlooked. This could hardly be the first cameo Albert cut & signed so neatly, yet he seems to have gone completely under the radar. Julia Kagan & Helen Serras-Herman even missed Richard in the list they compiled of British gem engravers, perhaps because his works seem to get termed 'portrait medallions' rather than cameos.

    Would not be surprised if Albert himself were also a bit eccentric. Yet he must have applied himself to mastering the skills needed for his art, so not totally flaky.
     
  6. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    I think you can really see the influence of wax portrait modeling from his father and probably himself, in the style of the carving. The blending translucent things into the background, the comparatively shallow modeling and the attention to lace detail. I feel like the cameos from those who strictly did shell or stone have a slightly different approach.

    I'm a lil strange but my father is a character who daily exhausts me so maybe I'm projecting too much on Al. ;)
     
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  7. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    I have a small pile of backlog but I just got this one recently and I have questions! :D

    I hadn't seen a cameo like this before. I wasn't sure what it was made of so for $16 I decided to have a mystery. It appears to be early plastic that has been carved. It sounds like tapping a vintage blow mold. Is carving early plastic a thing? Is this celluloid? 1 5/8" x 2" (4.13 x 5 cm) and very light at 12 grams.

    WhitePlasticCameo A1sm.jpg

    The back has a separate very thin transparent plastic "cover" (think photo insert covers) above the back of the cameo plastic. The cameo backside has many tool marks. The thin plastic has that horizontal machined texture I've seen on other early plastics. (Ignore the ring...I put that there.)
    WhitePlasticCameo A2sm.jpg

    More tool marks. The whole thing is covered in light to medium scratches over the contours and has carved out areas.
    WhitePlasticCameo A3sm.jpg

    Close up of the look of the plastic. It's completely flat with no divots to match these dots.
    WhitePlasticCameo A4sm.jpg

    Definitely not an ivory, bone or resin (I didn't think it was when I bought it). If celluloid trying to be ivory I thought it was interesting it wasn't the slabbed lined stuff. I know celluloid is supposed to smell like camphor but I can't get it to smell like anything and apparently water can hasten it's demise so I didn't really want to do the hot water test. Could it be other light plastic, maybe? Has anyone seen other carved plastic jewelry or cameos?
     
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  8. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    Charming cameo, mirana.:)
    Celluloid was definitely carved, think of ornamental combs.
     
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  9. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    From the first pic, before reading any of the text, thought I was looking at 'dripstone' because of the speckling. But, with that ruled out, I just see Celluloid or similar. Definitely looks like a molded piece & I don't see any undercutting or any feature that would have required hand sculpting. Color, & discoloring, consistent with Celluloid. Are the speckles pitting? Piece looks like it has seen some hard times.

    Am hoping to get photos of a piece of mine that I have shown before for its similarity in appearance to ivory, to show how 'busy' the back surface is even though it feels quite smooth to the fingertip & looks that way too, to the unaided eye.
     
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  10. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    No pitting. It's completely smooth in relation to those dots. I would be very interested to confirm that your known celluloid "ivory" has a similar close-up look so I can learn.

    It is possible it was molded and then further shaped but it definitely 100% has been manipulated with tools at some stage. It's so hard for my camera to show it because it's so light but you can see the scratch marks around each bit of hair and dig outs at the base of the neck and in-between locks. The surface tool marks are on the entire thing. So it's not oh there's signs in a couple places...every surface is scratched in varying degrees of depth, in contour with the portrait (not as incidental scratches from use). I think that's easiest to see in the hair which is adjusted or modeled in a rather clumsy way. The back of it is also solid and has been aggressively dug out and shaped with bigger tools.

    When I'm at my computer I'll see if I can find a better photo. I have a new phone and the camera that's supposed to be fancier is giving me worse photos than my very old one. I'm sure it's user error because there are so many options but it's infuriating. :rolleyes: The macro setting is giving me less detail than the normal lens! :banghead:
     
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  11. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    I made a second attempt at photos today. Not much better than first attempt, but a little. When under magnification & held just so to the light, back shows very fine parallel lines running horizontally down the entire length of the back, just impossible with my meager skills & equipment to capture. Think you were also describing this on your piece? Like the traces of a polishing method.

    There's no doubt that Ceres is Celluloid or something very similar. When you tap her with a fingernail you know you are dealing with some kind of plastic.

    Celluloid Ceres front 1.jpg

    I do not see any evidence that she has been manually touched up or enhanced on the front; strictly a molded production.

    Photos of the back do not fully capture the highly textured appearance, which contrasts with the completely smooth feel.

    Celluloid Ceres back 1.jpg
     
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  12. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    Thank you for the new photos!!

    It's amazing that it's celluloid because it looks like criss crossing lines on back. Amazing mimicry.

    I found a great, extremely in depth article on celluloid (history, how it's produced, theories on what causes deterioration, how to forestall that for a time...).
    CELLULOID OBJECTS: THEIR CHEMISTRY AND PRESERVATION by JULIE A. REILLY (1991 Vol 30 Number 2 Article 3) on the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation site.

    She talks about how they produced ivory celluloid:
    "Thin sheets of celluloid were prepared in two colors, one opaque and the other more transparent. The opaque ivory-colored sheets were layered between more transparent sheets of the same color. A block was created out of these alternating layers with heat and pressure. This block was then sliced and the thin slices pressed into another block. The second block, when fabricated, created an accurate imitation of ivory (Worden 1911, 2:683–87). Even at a magnification of 12x structures of celluloid ivory may be indistinguishable from those of real ivory."

    Idk about "indistinguishable" since you can tell from photos, and if mine is celluloid then certainly the "structures" look different. Really interesting info nonetheless.

    She also mentions:
    "Celluloid was machined like wood (sawed, drilled, carved, and planed) and was formed with heat and pressure and blow molded. The technique of blow molding was developed for use with celluloid."

    That made me feel rather smart as the first thing I thought when I tapped it was "sounds like a blow mold" :D So perhaps it was blow molded and then additionally carved. My only hesitations with that are it was carved into itself on the back making me wonder if it's solid, and also... I've never seen another of this design...YET! So I'll be keeping an eye out for this guy. I don't think I've seen one of your gal either. I would buy it in a second if I did because I love her design and frame. :joyful:

    The parallel lines I describe are machined into the surface and very fine. They are only on a separate thin clear piece of plastic on the back, and not on the cameo. There are similar on thin sheets of a dance card pendant I have. The back of the cameo has big gouged tool marks.

    PXL_20250312_205139293~3.jpg

    PXL_20250312_221643619~2.jpg

    Sorry the image is so close but I only have my phone right now so had to crop to keep it under the limit. This photo was taken after he had a bath and the water briefly trapped between the two pieces made capturing the marks much easier. (I've since found water should be used with caution or not at all if your piece is deteriorating so anyone referencing this...read the Conservation article! :bag:)

    The carving scratches on the front are visible best in the white highlights of the other pictures I think. :watching:

    In the meantime I've bought a pierced porcelain dish to store it in since per the article, celluloid rusts metal and various metals, the lead in solder, zinc, etc can hasten it's decline. Also paper pulps and wood are bad. And it needs air flow for off gassing and shouldn't be kept with other celluloids... I don't know how celluloid collectors (or museums) do it!
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2025
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  13. bluumz

    bluumz Quite Busy

    This is wonderful info, thanks!!
    I, too, have a mystery ivory/celluloid piece, discussed HERE.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2025
  14. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    I remember this lady of yours! (Because I've read every cameo related thing on the board... :bag:)

    Definitely give the article a skim when you have time. Really interesting and there's a lot in there about caring for celluloid. I feel better about the struggle to ID it because she talks about that and basically says you have to have access to a science lab to confirm it. :hilarious:

    The piece I have could never be confused for real ivory (if it had the lines). Like Bronwen's Ceres, its a definite plastic sound like you're tapping on a vintage xmas decoration. It's very light weight. My ivory pieces are substantial and have a sort of creamy feel to them. I can check the UV of ivory vs this piece...but UV is a point of deterioration for celluloid. She references far UV as a real culprit, and I think blacklights are akin to short UV, but less is more is probably best. Celluloid seems an extremely finicky thing to keep. :confused:

    So if mine is carved then that's throwing a wrench in an easy ID between ivory and celluloid... Especially in photos. :arghh: It's awfully wily of them to carve plastic lol. That's not helpful haha. But it is interesting. I still love a handmade object and that counts!
     
  15. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

  16. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

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  17. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    Yes, one of his more accomplished efforts. I'll watch to see what happens to it but will not be bidding, so anyone else interested... I've put the photos in my 'collection'.
     
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  18. mirana

    mirana Well-Known Member

    That 36% in fees before VAT/tax and shipping though! Are they normally that high?

    I actually got a Schmoll in the mail today with a couple others... :bucktooth: It's extremely, extremely dirty though so it's havin' a soak as I type.
     
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  19. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    The 36% includes VAT, if I read it correctly. Buyer's fees have really shot up in the last couple of years.

    Oh, good. Some new treats to ogle coming soon, I hope. :)
     
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  20. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    At the moment the Schmoll only has 1 watcher - me. I'm not bidding & they haven't pointed out it's signed, much less by whom, so could be any bidder will be the only bidder. Of course, dollar has been weakening. Don't know current exchange rate for USD to GBP.
     
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