Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I have a few, all helmet shell. I try to take pictures before and after cleaning them, but they get buried in my phone Here's the better one of my Silz-Schmolls I mentioned:



A maenad, I think. The cracks on the left don't go all the way through. I like her proportions and how the thinness of the carving around the eye creates a shadowy effect that's unfortunately hard to capture in a picture.

And here's my favorite cameo that I own:



A small brooch that might depict Ariadne--or was intended to depict Ariadne, I think. No ivy leaf crown, but the mount has ivy leaf details. I was really taken with the hairstyle and spent quite a while looking into it before I found that it's often associated with Ariadne, and then I was curious as to why. I found that with ancient sculptures, some show Ariadne with her hair in a bun and some have the neat coils along with it, but the split-bun-with-coils-and-longer-waves style seemed to get associated with her more often in depictions that were made during or after the 18th century (impressions and sculptures, though there's usually some debate on if the intention was Ariadne or a maenad). There's a bust in the Royal Academy of Arts collection that's a cast of a Roman copy of a Greek original of what is now believed to be Bacchus but was identified for a time as Ariadne. A similar note also pops up in the Thorvaldsen museum archive account of a commissioned recreation of the Roman marble bust:



It makes me wonder if the apparently misidentified bust influenced how Ariadne was depicted, or if maybe it was the other way around and there are other depictions of Ariadne in a similar style that I haven't come across that led to the bust being identified as her originally. A few sources say that the Roman bust that was copied is at the Capitoline Museums, but I haven't found any pictures of it. I learned a lot about Ariadne's tale and the variations of how it's told while wandering down this rabbit hole, including an interesting tangent about Libera as Persephone and/or deified Ariadne. Still really love the hairstyle and the piece whether or not it's Ariadne, a maenad, Bacchus, or actually none of them at all.

 

Can't help wondering how much the carver enjoyed shaping those buns...!

 

I saw that one and laughed for the same reason!

 

Two Graces and a Booty!

 

They look like saggy boobs to me!

 

My friend is going to scrap this heavy 14k gold brooch/pendant. I told him to save me the cameo. He said the approximate weight in gold is 16 pennyweights at $92 per pennyweight.

 

That carver did wheat and a butterfly...guess he just liked their looks. I think your friend is right that the gold is worth more than the carving intact. I hope she's removed in one piece for you!

 

My sister found this cameo at a local antique shop. It is beautifully carved, but no signature. He really needed a bath. Maybe one day I can figure out who it is.

@Bronwen, you are welcome to put him on your gents board.

 

I love how distinct he is. What a lovely carving. I can't believe he's not signed with that level of mastery. He looks so much better after the bath!!

 

I knew I wasn't getting this cheap. So, I set a limit and almost immediately that was gone. But, IMO (everything comes down to taste) this is special. So, I went all the way. Of course once they add all the fees and shipping, it'll be that much more. If it ends up not being lava, I'll be pissed. As long as it's old, even if it's stone, it's a beautiful carving.

 

She looks like lava but also needs a cleaning with that "foxing" (?). The back says "fidelity". There's also an opera but i don't think she represents lovers eaten by monsters...? So more likely a commentary on dog lovers. She's a very pretty carving.

 

How would you clean this?

 

Dish soap drop in small bowl and a soft toothbrush. We've discussed cleaning lava in the past in this thread. It is more porous so a soak may or may NOT be a good idea. No consensus on that. I have soaked a lava piece for like an hour before with no issue, but I would maybe just try a gentle surface clean to start. It doesn't help that some "lava" isn't the stone but appears to be a mixture that has been molded. Harder to say with certainty what will be safe in every case.

That said, a foxing look like that says mold to me and I wouldn't want to spreading imo. It might just be molding on the grime attached. I've had that too.

 

On another surface I'd use vinegar to go after mold, but it might eat the lava too, so soap on a toothbrush it is.

 

Here's a queen conch Day cameo I picked up that proved to be difficult to photograph because of the contrast between the shell and the frame:



She's small - which was part of the appeal for me, since I find I'm more likely to wear small cameos. I really like the details, even if the bird is questionable if I look too closely. Here's what she's looking like after a first wash:



I'm going to let it soak again to get the final bits of dirt out. The back is a bit odd. The pin can't stay in and it makes the brooch lay in a weird way, so I'll need to figure out a solution before I can consider wearing it. (I'm thinking of just attaching a pin back or something similar, given how small it is, but I'm not in any rush)

 

She's a cutie and cleaned up beautifully! I have a bunch of smaller "cruder" cameos in my collection simply because I know I can wear them out without much worry and from a expected viewing distance, they can look quite nice and detailed!

The frame may be Whitby Jet. Many cameos were imported from Italy for jet carvers to mount like this. There are other materials that faked being Whitby jet, but the Whitby stuff tends to have back fixings glued like this one.

It looks like this cameo may have started life strung on a bracelet or necklace and that's why it's got those grooves on the back. Someone may have later converted it.

 

That's what it was sold as! I don't have anything to compare it to for confirmation but I don't have any immediate reason to doubt it, either.

This would make a lot of sense! In the picture, there are two marks on either end of the side of the brass. When I look at the gap between the pin base and the frame I can see it's connected to holes in the frame; probably how it was strung. Now I wonder if the original piece was beaded or if it might've included her sister, Night...

 

Should you soak Whitby jet?

 

It's often found floating in on the seashore, so while soaking the adhesive would give me pause, soaking the jet probably wouldn't. True jet was often found by seaside scavangers/harvesters who went out looking for it.

 

Ditto to what @evelyb30 said. It's the shells being soaked.... They were born of water! That said, Whitby so called "hard" jet is totally fine. There is a "soft" jet in Europe that people think came from fresh water instead of sea water and it can crack over time. Any antique pieces would probably already show that stress though.

As for the glue...it can always be re-glued and if it separates from the soak I'm gonna assume it wasn't long for this world anyway and at least it came apart in a controlled way and not walking around town lol. They used a lot of animal glues in Cameo construction which become brittle eventually. Jet has a mixture glue that seems tough as hell.... I'll have to look up the exact composition.

Anyone looking for really good online Jet info should read the Ebor Jet Works blog posts. They are super interesting and very informative for recognizing jet from other imitations, what jet is, how to care for it, etc. It's run by a jeweler who's a jet scientist. Her YouTube videos are interesting too. It's a great compliment to Helen Muller's book(s).

I really need to make a post about the very small jet selection I've picked up. I got really into it after picking up an all jet cameo...of course.

They usually used cameos sparingly as the focal point...probably because they had to buy the shell ones from an Italian...and all-jet ones were tine consuming and a master level work. Necklaces might have multiples, but one big and the others smaller. I would guess a bracelet because they were worn in matching pairs on each arm so maybe night was on the other.