• Material: Hard Stone, 18k gold, hallmarked with the Eagle's Head on the pin, plus another gold hallmark, half pearls, about 0.80/1.00 carat of old brilliant cut diamonds.
• Size: 2 1/2" by 2 1/8", cameo itself is 2" by 1 1/2", the carving stands 1" proud from the base of the frame and about 6/8" proud from the stone background.
• Data and Origin: circa 1870/1880 France.
• Conditions: Mint.
• Weight: 60.3 grams.

More than museum quality hard stone cameo depicting a rarest subject, the God Dionysus (Bacchus for the Romans) portrayed in front face. Dionysus was a popular subject on cameos in the Victorian era but rarest to find depicted in front face and this one is the first one I have ever found in so many years of cameos trade. This cameo makes me speechless and breathless, for the perfect carving, for the face of Dionysus for the relief of the carving and for the beauty of the frame. I'm amazed looking at this cameo and ask to myself if it is real or it is the fruit of my imagination. Bacchus is depicted in front face and he's really handsome, his beauty is almost a feminine one. The carving is magnificently made and you can see how his face is expressive. The great skill of the carver transformed a face carved on a stone in a human one. His face is so pretty and his facial features are perfect. His eyes, his perfect nose, his perfect oval face and his wonderfully carved little mouth make this piece outstanding. His hair is adorned with fruiting vines and two lock of curly hair softly lie on his shoulders. Look at how the fruiting vines are carved, there is also one who is folded and seems like a real one. A garland of fruiting vines goes down on his shoulder and on his mighty and muscled chest. This cameo is "the ABSOLUTE beauty", you really could forget that it is only a man carved on stone and you could really desire to kiss him. I really have not words to describe the rare beauty of this huge piece. This cameo shows a sensuality that is not common, his languid pose, his long neck and the perfect masculine chest, I could expect to see it moving because of his breath as, believe me, he is alive. The frame is another work of art, half pearls and four big diamonds at the cardinal points, each one is about 0.20/0.25 carats in old brilliant cut. The colour oif the stone is spectacular, a warm but light nut for the background and a ivory white for the carving. This is a spectacular work of art that I have had the fortune to find. Every small details is perfectly carved. Simply fantastic. I have never seen something like this one and I really can affirm that this is a unique artwork.  A very desirable collectors piece, rare and more than museum quality cameo.




A bit of History:


Bacchus (Dionysus for the Greeks) was the God of Wine, of the joyful voluptuousness of drinking and of the sensuality to which the Italics attributed at the end the uses and the rites of the corresponding Greek God Dionysus. He's the God of the vices, his cult (Bacchanalian) arrived in the Italian Peninsula in the 2nd century B.C. The symbol of this divinity, other than the grapevine and the climbing ivy, was the thyrsus, a stick surmounted by an ivy tangle. On a side his aspect was always the one of a very handsome youth with a curly head and crowned by vine-leaf and grapevines. He was a jolly, smiling God and symbol of the rejoicing and of the richness of the nature, on the other side tied up to dark rites and sometime wild. Son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal woman, that following the perfidious counsel of the jealous Hera, was burnt down for having looked at the face of her lover, Zeus, in all of his splendour, thing not permitted to the mortals. Zeus, to save Dionysus, took to the end the pregnancy of his sons sewing him in a thigh of his then he brought him to Nysa where the Nymphs fed him with honey (the wet nurses Nymphs became later the stars of the Ladi constellation). During the Dionysian festivals usually was sacrificed a goat with a chorals and speeches exchanged between the priests. To this aspect of that ritual the Greek Tragedy can be originated as the Greek thinkers believe, Tragedy destined, in the Classic Greece, to become one of the highest and most complete form of poetry.