• Material: Sardonyx shell (Red Head), silver.
• Size:  just over 2 1/8" by just under 1 7/8". 
• Date and Origin: Circa 1860 Italy.
• Conditions:  Excellent, a few slightest natural shell lines, very barely visible when cameo is backlit not visible by naked eye.

Rarest subject in a museum quality cameo. Athena (Minerva), Goddess of War and Wisdom, allegorically depicted as Roma. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus are featured on her helmet. An eagle too is carved on her helmet, eagle was the symbol of Rome and the symbol of Zeus, the king of Gods and father of Athena (Minerva). A winged sphinx on the top of her helmet. A three dimensional carved piece and seems just a sculpture. The carving on this cameo is outstandingly  perfect and very crisp, the cut lines are very clean and sharp. Her face is of high beauty and shows nobility and, as a feminine touch, she’s wearing a necklace and earrings. This cameo really catches your eyes because of its many perfect details. The carved used the colors of the shell to give a touch of color to her helmet, her hair, her shield, creating a beautiful contrast with the white of the background. A real exceptional and rarest piece. I’m really speechless looking at her. The frame is made of silver and is really simple to not detract the attention from the cameo.. The pictures really don't give any justice to this work of art. This is an incredible, very detailed cameo, carved by an artist.  Rarest cameo and subject very desirable collectors' piece.

A bit of history:

In the Greek mythology Athena, daughter of Zeus, was the goddess of  Wisdom, of the Weaving, of the Arts, and, presumably, of the noblest sides of the War, while the violence and the cruelty were part of  the dominion of Ares. The sacred symbols were the owl and the olive. She is almost always represented with a helmet or a shield and with the Aegis (a short armour with fringes) with in the center the head of  Medusa given by Perseus to Athena in sign of thanks for the help had when he faced the Medusa. Athena never had an husband or lover and for this she was known like Athena Parthenos (the Virgin Athena), from which the name of the most famous temple dedicated to her, the Parthenon on Athen's Acropolis.