Material: Sardonyx Shell,  15k gold tested.
Size: 3" by 2 5/8", cameo itself  is 2 1/8" by 1 6/8".
Date and Origin: Circa 1850 Italy.
Conditions:  Pristine.


This is a Museum Quality  cameo depicting a rarest subject never seen before, the Genesis Angel. I'm speechless looking at this cameo and at its carving, I have never seen something of similar. The three-dimensionality of this subject is more than amazing. The carver perfectly reproduced the mosaic by Raphael which the subject is from. Creation of the World (See Pictures) is a mosaic composition in the dome of the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, designed by Raphael. The angel has spread wings, his hands resting to the starry globe, his head and his ecstatic gaze turned upwards to the Creator. There is an inscription on the starry globe who reads, in Latin, "Fiant Luminaria In Firmamento" it is related to the fourth day of the world creation and means "And Let Them Be for Lights in The Firmament of the Heaven".  Look please at his hands, each finger is perfect. His dress is finely decorated and his curly and long hair are softly lying on his shoulders. The beauty and the serenity of his face are sensational, his facial features are lovely and so finely made. His open eyes while he's looking towards God are perfectly rendered and give to his face an expression of ecstasy, his upwards look towards God is so real and leaves you speechless. This cameo is an unique and rarest work of art. This really is once in a lifetime piece. Its surpassing beauty is breathtaking.  The skill of the carver can be truly seen in this artwork.  This piece is very large and the frame is really stunning, heavy gold embellished by gold scrolls finely chiseled. Finding a rarest piece like this is hardest, and finding it is so mint conditions is today really a mission impossible. The pictures, even if wonderful,  really don't give to this cameo any justice, seen in person it takes your breath away. This really is one of the most wonderful cameo that I have ever handled. Not to be missed.   

Very Interesting History:

The Angel of the Fourth Day:


Before starting his work on the Dome Raphael thought that the words expressing the will of the Creator (Fiant Luminaria in Firmamento Coeli, And Let Them Be for Lights in The Firmament of the Heaven) would not find convenient place in the central round of the dome. Instead they are expressed in one of those oblong spaces around it, and precisely in that one against the God Father. In that space it is depicted an angel with spread wings, with his hands resting to the starry globe, with the head and the gaze turned to the Creator. On the globe was written all around Fiant Luminaria in Firmamento Coeli, as obedience to this order an angel, in each of the other oblong spaces, gives the first impulse and government to the movement of each planet. It is therefore expressed in this composition the strange concept of angels bearing the commands of Heaven to Jupiter and to the Gods of the pagan Olympus. The subject was not so artistically easy to treat and depict
but Raphael, however, managed it to win the many difficulties he faced. The motto was destroyed during the sack of Rome in 1527 and never restored.  It is said that Raphael was inspired by some verses from the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri to make this artwork and these are the ones:
Heaven verse II:
The force and motion of the holy spheres
must be inspired by the blessed movers,
just as the smith imparts the hammer's art.
Then Dante says in his Banquet:
It is, then, reasonable to hold that those who move Mercury are the Archangels, and those who move Venus are the Thrones. These last, whose very nature it is to love the Holy Spirit, imbue with an abundance of love the activity which is proper to them and is of a kind with their nature, namely, the movement of that heaven. From this love the form of that heaven takes on a powerful ardour through which it enkindles love in souls here below, to the degree that they are disposed to receive it.

The Dome

Creation of the World is a mosaic composition in the dome of the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, designed by Raphael. The chapel itself was designed by Raphael for his friend and patron, banker Agostino Chigi as a private chapel and family burial place. The dome was decorated with mosaics, a somewhat unusual and old-fashioned technique in the 16th century. Raphael's cartoons were executed by a Venetian craftsman, Luigi da Pace in 1516. The original cartoons were lost but some preparatory drawings, that confirm the originality of the work, survived in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. There are two studies for the figure of God and one for the angel above Jupiter. Another drawing in the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille shows the planet Mars with an angel. This is probably a creative drawing by a pupil suggested by its inferior quality. Luigi da Pace signed and dated the work at the corner of the panel of Venus: "LV[dovicus] D[e] P[ace] V[enetus] F[ecit] 1516"

Description:
 
The central roundel represents God, the Father, surrounded by putti, effectively foreshortened in an impetuous gesture, harking back to Michelangelo, which seems to give rise to the entire motion of the universe below. Eight mosaic panels show the Sun, the Moon, the starry sky and the six known planets as pagan deities depicted in half-length, each accompanied by an angel with colourful feathered wings. The figures are accompanied by the signs of the zodiac.
The sequence of the panels is as follows: the sky;Mercury, the god holding the caduceus (with Virgo and Gemini); Luna, the crescent moon jewelled goddess holding a bow (with Cancer);Saturn, the bearded god holding the scythe (with Acquarius and Capricorn); Jupiter, the king of the gods with his eagle holding a thunderbolt (withSagittarius and Pisces); Mars, the god of war holding a sword and a shield (with Scorpio and Aries); Sol, the sun-jewelled god holding a bow (with Leo);Venus, the goddess of love with Cupid holding a torch as the Evening Star (with Taurus and Libra). A French engraver, Nicolas Dorigny created a series of plates depicting the mosaics in 1695 for Louis, Duke of Burgundy. (See Picture)
The mosaic panels are surrounded by richly gilded stucco decoration. The blue background creates an optical illusion giving the impression of an architectural framework opening to the sky above the chapel. The panels look like illusionistic skylights between the gilt stucco ribs while God is standing on the edge of the central oculus.
The traditional interpretation of the dome is that the composition shows the Creation of the World. Another (disputed) interpretation claims that it represents the cosmos as described by Plato in a Christianized Neoplatonist form. This idea had a widespread popularity in the Renaissance. In this case the dome is a depiction of the Realm of the Soul after Death with God, the Father receiving the soul (of Agostino Chigi) in his new home. The presence of the signs of the zodiac corroborates this interpretation because the signs were symbols of the passage of time in eternity, and they appeared in antique funeral art around the image of the departed. Nicole Riegel emphasized the role of the angels in the composition: "In view of the important, anything but accessory position of the angels in the panels, there is an unmistakable effort for a reconciliation or interfusion of the Pagan and Christian life view."