A sad end... and a new beginning..... Cameos

I have worked with cameos before.....  I love them.  I love that they are carved from shell, mixing both nature and art into one piece, and that I am using another artists work incorporated into mine.  This artist is probably long gone....  but the beauty they created lives on long after them.

This week I am working with the most beautiful Cameo that I have ever had the privilege to work with.  The carving is exquisite and so finely worked that you would nearly expect her skin to be warm....  The details in her hair are soft and her clothing flows at the same time.....  I am in awe of the master craftsman that must have toiled for hours carving her with teeny tiny tools.....

(It is difficult to photograph Cameos to show all their details.... so she had to be in semi-shadow... hence the darkish photo.)

Even after telling you how happy I am to have her and to work with, it is a somewhat sad circumstance that finds her in my possession.   She has been prized from her Antique Setting in order to sell her gold to the refinery......  And she would have be in 18 carat gold.... that is certain.  A Cameo of this quality would NOT have been set in a lower grade metal..........

Cameo's were hugely popular towards the end of the 1800's.  Queen Victoria wore them as a part of her mourning garb and they became the height of fashion......  They have never really been as fashionable since...... and I am sure there are thousands of high quality Cameos that are sitting in inherited Jewellery collections all over the world.  

The price of precious metals have never been as high then they are at the moment, and with a world-wide rescission biting at people's purse strings.... it is easy to understand why these beautiful pieces of art are being cashed in for the price of their gold..........  Some enterprising people have decided to sell what the gold contained (weither it be stones or cameos) for a few extra Euro/pounds/dollars...... and thank goodness for it!  Otherwise these beautiful pieces would just be tossed in the bin by the refinery......... They have, after all, no inherent value, being made completely from shell.

She will be used again, by me.  Hopefully giving her a new lease on life and a new 'kick ass' attitude....

I will be making it my business to save as many of these beautiful pieces of 2 dimensional sculptures from the bin as I can......... honoring their beauty and the skill and memory of the Artisans who would have carved them at the end of the 1800's....... 

Watch out for her in my shop!