A NEOCLASSICAL CAMEO AND GOLD BRACELET

Description:

Germany or Switzerland, 2nd quarter 19th century
L. 17 cm
Gilt brass, partly woven, the cameos made of modelled mass, dyed light green and heightened with white. Some of the cameos marked Brown, Harris and Marchant. Lined with yellow silk. Weight. 17,6g.
Old private Collection, Berlin.
Lit. Brigitte Marquardt: Schmuck Klassizismus und Biedermeier, München 1983. similar type p. 197, 199 and 201.
The bracelet offered here is contemporary documents of great cultural and historical value. It come from a time when precious metals were difficult to obtain and almost unaffordable for a broad section of the population. Thus, in the first half of the 19th century, it was absolutely common and very fashionable of the time to produce jewelry not only from precious metal, but from a wide variety of materials.
The cameos are casts of well-known models, they bear the names of famous stone cutters of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, such as William Brown (1748-1825) and Nathaniel Marchant (1755-1812).