Description
Brooches AMS5717 SOLD
Shell cameo circa 1860-70 AMS5717. Depicting Nix – the primordial Greek goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation, and was the mother of personified gods such as Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death). Her appearances in mythology are sparse, but reveal a figure of exceptional power and beauty. She is depicted here in her cave ‘beyond the ocean (as in Hesiod) or somewhere at the edge of the cosmos (as in later Orphism)’, under a night sky with owls and her sons at her feet. When I look at this cameo I am in awe of the skill of the carver. This section of shell would have begun as a uniform white colour. The carver has then scraped through the white layer, leaving it in relief to reveal the desired subject and finally exposing the brown layer as a background colour. In places it is so fine as to give the impression of depth (for example the brickwork). That the carver could ‘see’ the finished picture in full and leave enough material to create such detail in the robes of Nyx, the decaying arches, the owl amazes me every time I look at it. Cameo carving, for me, represents one of the most skillful activities in the artisan world. The finished product is both jewellery and art, in fact the boundary between jewellery and art is eliminated in the making of a cameo. SOLD
