Large Antique Shell Cameo after John Gibson in Gold, Paris c. 1860

A team of horses with a chariot, an antique quadriga led by a person in an antique garment catches our view. Three stars indicate that there is no ground beneath the quadriga - the chariot scene takes place in the sky. The scene is cut into the shell of a large sea snail. The figures stand out in white against their dark background. The gold setting takes up the slightly irregular shape of the scene and transforms it into an even oval. The framing is elegantly staggered outwards. This brooch shows Phaeton in a sun chariot. The pictorial invention goes back to John Gibson, a Welsh sculptor of classicism who worked in the wake of Canova and Thorwaldsen and enjoyed great success in Great Britain in the middle of the 19th century. He created two large reliefs in the years around 1850, The Hours leading the Horses of the Sun and Phaeton driving the Chariot of the Sun. The plaster reliefs are in the collection of the Royal Academy in London, and there are several examples in marble. The scene with Phaeton, driven by arrogance, trying to steer the chariot of the sun and failing, was a great success for Gibson. It was almost immediately translated into the medium of the shell cameo by Tommaso Saulini, the most famous gem cutter of the mid-19th century, and was presented at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. The cameo has survived and is now in the British Museum. This cameo was probably made only a little later, so we date it to around 1860 and it was most probably cut in Italy. The gold setting was added only a little later in Paris and bears Parisian gold hallmarks. A gold safety chain additionally secures the brooch against loss. We discovered the brooch in Hesse. On the scene and the cameo in the British Museum cf. Charlotte Gere/Judy Rudoe: Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria, London: British Museum Press 2010, S. 474-475.

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