Winged Creatures

Vintage Pendant Brooch With Shell Cameo in Gold Setting, Circa 1985

€ 498.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Vintage Pendant Brooch With Shell Cameo in Gold Setting, Circa 1985

Description

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

Two winged creatures, naked and innocent, interact with a young woman in a light robe. She is kneeling towards the small creatures. A suggestive garden landscape with a pergola or trees frames the lovely scene. What are the little creatures doing, who seem to be gripped by joyful excitement, and what is the lady's task? Is it ultimately the goddess Venus and is one of the two winged creatures Cupid, the god of love? Questions like these often occupy us when we look at 20th century cameos, and often the meaning of the small scenes cannot be fully deciphered. However, one observation becomes apparent. While cameos from the 18th and 19th centuries were generally cut from classical antiquity, which found their way into the cameo cutters' workshops via elaborate engravings and prints, this approach seems to be increasingly lost in the 20th century. The themes and depictions are interpreted more freely and a deeper level of meaning is lost: goddesses become snub-nosed girls, mythological scenes become depictions whose main purpose seems to be decoration. What remains are the craft techniques with which pieces are first sawn out of the shells of large sea snails and then engraved. The meaningful content of the depiction so often found in early cameos gives way to a delight in figurative representation in flat relief. The scene described above is set in a 14-karat gold frame, which makes the cameo equally wearable as a brooch and pendant. We date the piece of jewelry to around 1985. It came to us from a Berlin gem collection.

Learn more

For centuries, almost all major collections aspired to own antique cameos and cameos: We find spectacular pieces in the Green Vault in Dresden, in the treasury of Rudolf II and in large private collections such as that of Baron Stosch in later times. The 18th and 19th centuries produced numerous large collections of impressions of ancient seal stones and cameos, which represent the ancient pictorial language of glyptic art almost in its entirety. They were thus not least an expression of humanistic education. 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 professional training center for cameo cutters, although unfortunately the mythological theme has almost completely disappeared as a subject.

Learn more

Size & Details

Winged Creatures

€ 498.00 ^*

Content 1 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.

Learn more

Winged Creatures

Pendants

Privacy settings