Look in any tray of jewellery, and a cameo will always stand out from the rest of the pieces there. This is probably because it gives us a picture of something—a classical head or a group of children—and we all like a picture.

But perhaps the word picture is rather misleading when we are talking about cameos. For a cameo, properly speaking is not just a “little picture“—in other words a “miniature”. Nor even is it just a piece of sculpture, or carving in low relief. It is, in fact, a kind of carving in layers of different colours or textures, so that something carved out of the top layer stands out in contrast to the ground beneath.

All the same, a collection of cameos does constitute a little picture gallery, so here is a subject for the antiques lover who has not too much space to spare and wants to make the most of it.

Perhaps the most popular sort—and certainly the most frequently come by—is the shell cameo. This was immensely popular in Victorian and Edwardian days, and still is, to judge by the imitations one sees in modern plastics. In fact, one of the points for the tyro cameo collector to learn is how the shell cameos are made, and so recognize them when they are seen.

Antique Collector MagazineShell cameos are made—they still are being made in Italy, I believe—from pieces of conch shell. You may have sometimes seen whole shells—with a cameo cut in the side, perhaps a classical head or a group of figures. Individual cameos for setting were made by taking out suitable pieces of a whole shell.

The cameo effect is obtained by cutting away the lighter coloured outer layers so as to show the figure in relief against the darker layers beneath. These sometimes show yellow or orange, sometimes brown or black, according to the type of shell used. You have only to look carefully at a few specimens to see at once the difference between the genuine shell cameo and the plastic versions.

As shell cutters tended to follow conventional designs, it is very difficult to date specimens, and in fact the only way of doing so that I know of—in the absence, of course, of a hallmark on a silver mount—is to assume that the better work was done in the early nineteenth century and the less skilled pieces much later, when the cameo has come down the social status, and was regarded as cheap jewellery. For if there is not much originality in subject, there are certainly very wide differences in the quality of the carving. Some of it is quite crude and perfunctory: in other pieces there is wonderfully delicate work not only as straight relief carving, but in the way the cutter has taken skilful advantage of the colours of the shell layers. Naturally the best effects are given when you have a combination of this fine carving and stronger colours of the finer shells.

Brooches are probably the most frequently met with types of cameo, but you should also look for pendants, necklaces, and even quite small ones for rings, buttons and cuff links. Sometimes they are mounted in gold, but pinchbeck was also used, and rolled gold in the later period.

Cameos were also made from gemstones, such as amethysts and emeralds but, of course, you will not expectto pick these up very cheaply. Less expensive are those of agate, garnet, coral, malachite and jasper, all with different coloured layers to work in. Lava stone from Pompeii was also a favourite material, for the tones of cream, terra cotta, grey and chocolate throughout its depth made it a fine material for the relief carver. These are sometimes found made up into bracelets.

Mention of jasper stone naturally leads one to all the cameos made of Josiah Wedgwood’s famous jasper ware,with its white relief on a coloured ground. Like all jasper ware, this was done by applying small impressed pads of clay on to the coloured ground, and then undercutting skilfully to bring the design up more sharply and also use the background—usually the famous Wedgwood blue—to show through as shadow. Apart from brooches, Wedgwood made all manner of cameos in his jasper ware, including portraits and classical subjects, designed for rings, bracelets, lockets, snuff boxes, watch keys, chains, hair-pins, buckles and buttons. Sometimes they are to be found framed on ormolu or cut-steel.

Jasper ware cameos made in the eighteenth century are expensive nowadays, but the firm began to make them again in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although these do not show quite the fine workmanship of the earlier work, they are still of a very high standard, and well worth the attention of the modest collector. If they bear the word “England” as well as “Wedgwood” impressed in the clay on the base, they will have been made after 1891.

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My Favorite Collections: Cameos