Posted 8 years ago
AC25
(1 item)
The large cameo's rim is 18K. It depics the music drama Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner, which premiered 17 August 1876. On the back of the cameo (circled in the photo) is the letter H.
I don't know much about the Madonna. The rim is some type of metal, but it is not gold. There is a marking on the middle of the pin, but it is unreadable.
Beautiful! Your Madonna might be framed in what's called pinchbeck, which is a form of brass, an alloy of copper and zinc. When mixed properly, it looks like gold.
Welcome to Cw :-D
Beautiful pieces!
The big cameo is ivory, and with the subject beeing Wagnerian, it may not be Italian, but this is only my guess...
Cameo Jewelry - Antique Cameos - Vintage Cameos
http://www.cameojewelry.com/pages/IVORYCAMEOS.html
The small cameo is marked on the pin, so if the pin is original, it's unlikely to be pinchbeck. The mark could say, 14K or GF or 925, or 10K, try to imagine the letters "unwrapped" from the pin and see what fits. Unless I'm forgetting something, the image is a somewhat unconventional depiction of Madonna, and so I would date it to 20th century when artists took more liberty with the subjects.
Thank you, everyone!