The Portrait of a Gentleman

Victorian Shell Cameo as Brooch in Gold Setting, Around 1845

€ 980.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Victorian Shell Cameo as Brooch in Gold Setting, Around 1845

Description

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

A souvenir of the Grand Tour is the shell cameo in the centre of this brooch. The Bay of Naples was an obligatory stop on any educational journey known as the Grand Tour, an indispensable part of the education of young people of the upper classes. In the region at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, specialized artists made portraits of the travellers and carved them into shells. As souvenirs, these representations were given to loved ones back home. Our piece shows the portrait of a young man in profile. His curly hair is carefully combed into his forehead. Obviously, we are dealing with the representation of a gentleman who, inspired by the spirit of antiquity, had himself depicted in a Roman toga. His hairstyle and curly whiskers, however, are entirely in keeping with the fashion of the 1840s. The cameo is held by an elaborate gold setting. To this day, the well-preserved piece of jewellery bears witness to a journey to Italy and holds the portrait of an unknown person who had his face carved into a shell. The brooch was shown in the summer of 2021 at the Angelika Kauffmann Museum Schwarzenberg (Vorarlberg, Austria) as part of the exhibition "Nach Italien! Angelika Kauffmann und die Grand Tour" and is shown in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition on page 24.

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For centuries, the possession of cameos was the claim of almost all great collections of decorative arts and chambers of curiosities, from the Green Vault in Dresden and the treasury of Rudolf II to large private collections such as that of Baron von Stosch in later times. The 18th and 19th centuries produced numerous large imprint collections of antique seal stones and cameos, which were able to represent the antique imagery of glyptic almost in its entirety, as they were also an expression of a humanistic education. However, the art of cameo-cutting has survived to this day in Italy, especially in the Bay of Naples, where it has been handed down from generation to generation. Today the Scuola dei Cammei in Torre del Greco is the only large-scale training centre for cameo-cutters in Italy. Of particular importance for the transmission of stone and shell carving north of the Alps have always been travellers to Italy, who brought home impressions and cut stones as well as engraved shells from their educational journeys to enjoy.

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Size & Details

The Portrait of a Gentleman

€ 980.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

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The Portrait of a Gentleman

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