brooch
- Museum number
- 1978,1002.733
- Description
-
Gold brooch with a central sapphire cameo head of Medusa in a heavy ropework setting bordered with pearls, each pinned to a stem decorated with ropework. The pins are stopped at the outer edge with minute cabochon rubies. The setting is marked on the reverse with the maker's mark in applied wirework and an engraved monogram on the back of the cameo..
- Production date
- 1870 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 3.30 centimetres (max)
- $Inscriptions
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Text of catalogue of Hull grundy Gift (Gere et al 1984) no. 954:
The setting of engraved gems in gold rims (usually plain) surrounded by smaller gems is a characteristic of late antique and Byzantine jewellery that was adopted in the Carolingian 'revival' of the ninth century. The Castellani family probably had access to late antique and Byzantine examples, but they are also likely to have seen the surviving fragment of the so-called 'Escrain de Charlemagne' or shrine of Charlemagne in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. The latter is set with a large antique intaglio, a first-century portrait of Julia, daughter of the Emperor Titus, by the Greek engraver Evodus, which was frequently copied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The intaglio is surrounded by smaller stones in gold rims, each set with a pearl pinned at the top to a claw-setting below (see Lasko 1972, pl. 24, pp. 24-6). Such a well-known and historic piece may have suggested the use of the pearl border for the cameo in this brooch.
For other engraved gems signed with the Castellani monogram see 850 and 986, and for cameos in Castellani settings see 921 and 922. (Judy Rudoe)
See also C. Gere & J. Rudoe, 'Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World', London, British Museum, 2010, fig. 391 p.408. Caption: ‘Periodo Medioevale or Periodo Rinascenza: gold and pearl brooch with a sapphire cameo of Medusa, made in the Castellani workshop. . . . Pearls set on pins occur frequently on late medieval jewellery and appear also on the ‘Carolingian’ parure (Fig. 390). But Augusto [Castellani] lists a number of jewels with a border of evenly spaced round stones in the Renaissance section of his ‘chronological collection’, suggesting that he thought the idea Renaissance (see p. 411). The line between Renaissance Italy and Gothic northern Europe in the 15th century was inevitably blurred.’ (Charlotte Gere)
- Location
- On display (G47/dc11)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2005 11 Nov-2006 26 Feb, Italy, Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, The Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry
2004 17 Nov-2005 6 Feb, USA, New York, Bard Graduate Center, The Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry
- Acquisition date
- 1978-1981
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1978,1002.733
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: HG.733 (masterlist number)