Give us Youth!

Antique Brooch With Beautiful Shell Cameo Set In Pinchbeck, Circa 1860

€ 298.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Unit price €298.00 / piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Antique Brooch With Beautiful Shell Cameo Set In Pinchbeck, Circa 1860

Description

This description was automatically translated from German. If you have any questions about this piece of jewellery, we will be happy to help!

The highly oval shell cameo in the center of this brooch shows the goddess Hebe in a powerful cut. Light-footed and elegant, the Greek goddess of youth appears to be dancing with waving velum. A carafe in her right hand is intended to offer the gods the sweet juice of life, the nectar. For it is her task on Mount Olympus to bring food to the gods. Hebe is the daughter of Zeus and Hera and had the power to give people a new youth. She is depicted at a moment when she is pouring nectar into a kantharos. Next to her, a smoking fire burns in a bowl on a stele. A simple setting of engraved pinchbeck makes the cameo wearable as a brooch. The shell was probably cut in Italy and then set in England. It came to us from a large collection of historical cameos and cameos here in Berlin and we date it to around 1860.

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For centuries, almost all major collections of decorative arts and cabinets of curiosities, from the Green Vault in Dresden to the treasury of Rudolf II and large private collections such as that of Baron von Stosch in later times, aspired to possess antique cameos. The 18th and 19th centuries produced numerous large collections of impressions of antique seal stones and cameos, which were able to represent the ancient pictorial language of antique glyptic art almost in its entirety, as they were also an expression of humanistic education. Figures from the Olympian heaven of the gods or mythological scenes were often the subject of the depictions. Particularly important for the dissemination of stone and shell carvings north of the Alps were travelers to Italy, who brought home impressions and carved stones as well as engraved shells from their educational journeys in order to enjoy the stories that the shells could tell. The art of cameo cutter has survived to this day in Italy, especially in the Bay of Naples, where it has been passed down from generation to generation. Today, the Scuola dei Cammei in Torre del Greco is the world's only large-scale training center for cameo cutters in Italy, although unfortunately the mythological themes have been lost.

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Size & Details

Give us Youth!

€ 298.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Unit price €298.00 / piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Our Promise

We want you to be 100% satisfied! For that reason, we examine, describe and photograph all of our jewellery with the utmost care.

You can rely on our years of experience in the trade and our expertise as a professional art historians for reviews of the antique jewellery. As a member of various trade organisations and the British Society of Jewellery Historians, we remain committed to the highest possible degree of accuracy. In our descriptions, we always also indicate any signs of age and defects and never hide them in our photos – this saves you from any unpleasant surprises when your package arrives.

Should you for some reason not be satisfied, please don’t hesitate to contact us so that we can find a solution together. In any case, you can return any article within one month and we will refund the full purchase price.

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Give us Youth!

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