Victorian Shell Cameo of Hebe in Gold Mount, England/Italy circa 1860

A woman in antique garb has settled down on a band of clouds. Her hair is pinned up at the nape of her neck and the cloak of her peblos billows in the wind of the moving celestial scene. A mighty eagle, almost as large as herself, approaches in flight and feeds from a bowl that she holds ready on her knees and fills from a jug. What we see in this mid-19th century Victorian shell cameo is a scene from classical mythology often depicted in the medium of the cameo in the 19th century. The female figure is Hebe in her function as cupbearer to the Olympian gods before she is replaced by Ganymede and Zeus in the form of an eagle, who in this case is accompanied by a bundle of fire in his fangs as an attribute. The cameo consists of the shell of a sea shell and appears in beautiful light shades of white against a cream-colored background. We assume that the relief was cut in Italy, probably in the Bay of Naples. The gold setting bears an English hallmark and we date the piece of jewellery to around 1860. The cameo came to us from Freiburg im Breisgau.

Estimate:£817.64

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