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Page 30 The Antique Shoppe January, 2018
The Antique Detective DOES CAMEO JEWELRY RATE A
by Anne Gilbert SECOND LOOK ?
You don’t hear much these days about and discoloration were achieved with abrasive loup or magnifying glass will reveal no tool
carved cameo jewelry, once hot in the 19th solutions. Cheap imitations were also made. marks. Glass imitations cast from an original
century. By the 20th century it seemed Pieces were also sold by dealers as cameo will have a signature. Typical would be
like everybody’s grandma had a antiquities by removing signatures. a raised, opaque white glass cameo cemented to
cameo pin or ring. Yet it is a So what else is new? a dark background, usually onyx or carnelian.
serious art form with a history Cameos were briefly out of These days they are even made of plastic.
dating back to antiquity in the fashion from 1820 to 1840. A clue to the age can be the mounting
first century. So why does By 1850 shell cameos had materials. Gold, silver, gold filled and cut steel
it usually come to auction become larger and neo-classical were some of them. The quality of the carving is
priced in the $100/200 subjects were replaced with important to the value.
price range? Exceptions women’s heads and figures,
are rarities such as a dealer often mounted in gold. Other
example on 1stdibs, priced at subjects were also portrait busts
$3,900: a c.1800s, Victorian of famous people.
shell carving of Bacchus. What were cameos made from ?
Cameo carving began in The shells came from Africa and the
antiquity, in the first century, ↑1880s, Victorian cameo West Indies as well as Italian
during the reign of Emperor Bacchus; 1stdibs lava, coral, carnelian, agate and
Augustus, and at the same paste. They were also made of
time in Greece. During the glass,
Renaissance a renewed interest developed in both In the 1860s, as families began traveling to far
carving and collecting. away destinations, such as Italy, scenic cameos
When the Napoleonic campaigns brought became popular.
classicism into fashion, cameo carved items CLUES: By the late 19th century new ways
became important along with their makers. to fake the then popular cameos were in use.
However, popularity brought forgeries and the Cameo-type designs were molded in glass or
faking of signatures of renowned carvers. Aging porcelain. Careful examination with a jewelers ↑Shell cameo. Victorian. Archangel Michael;
Lang Estate Jewelry, San Francisco , CA
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