Antique Shell Cameo With Personification Of Fidelity In Gold Setting

We see the bust of a young woman cut into the shell of a sea snail. The finely engraved relief shows a graceful lady in profile to the left with her hair pinned up and adorned with ivy vines and ivy berries. The sitter in this cameo from Victorian times is Fides, the personification of loving fidelity. As firmly as ivy climbs a wall and does not let go again, fidelity binds two people together - that is why the ivy is an attribute of Fides depicted here. This Victorian symbolic language was also associated by the painter Philip Hermogenes Calderon in his painting "Broken Vows" (1856), in which he depicted a faithful lover in front of a wall overgrown with ivy. The cameo is set in finely crafted gold, making it wearable as a brooch. It is in very good condition and came to us from London. The typical Victorian piece of jewellery celebrates faithful love and is thus suitable as a gift for example for a wedding anniversary.

Estimate:£825.2

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