Victorian Cameo of Layered Agate in Gold Setting, Around 1845

A souvenir of the Grand Tour is this cameo in the centre of the present brooch. On the way to Italy, the Middle Rhine Valley was a stopover for many English travellers in the 19th century. The romantic landscape with its numerous castle ruins soon developed from a transit region on the classic educational tour to a first-class tourist address. As in Italy, specialised artists produced portraits of the travellers and carved them as cameos. These portraits were given as souvenirs to loved ones back home. The town of Idar in particular, situated not far from the Rhine valley in the mountains of the Hunsrück, was known far beyond the borders of Germany as a centre of the art of stone carving. The artists who lived here specialized in working agate and created wonderful cameos from the difficult-to-cut material. Our cameo, too, was most probably made in Idar-Oberstein and shows the portrait of a young man in profile. His curly hair is carefully coiffured. Obviously it is a representation of a gentleman who, inspired by the spirit of antiquity, had himself depicted in a Roman toga in the style of a senator. His hairstyle and curly whiskers, however, are entirely in keeping with the fashion of the 1840s. The gem is held by a simple setting of reddish gold. To this day, the well-preserved piece of jewellery bears witness to a Grand Tour and holds the portrait of an unknown person who had his face carved in layered agate. It came to us from London.

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