Few objects embody the Neoclassical fashion for engraved
gems as well as this extraordinary choker.
The necklace
is composed of a series of nine beautiful cameos and ten
carnelian cameos set on cloth and embellished with enamelled
gold mounts.
The choker is part of the group of jewels
thought to have been assembled by Empress Joséphine,
wife of Emperor Napoleon I, and later acquired by the Earls
of Harewood.
As has been eloquently outlined by Diana
Scarisbrick FSA, the Empress was an obsessive collector of
the glyptics.
This thirst for the finest engraved gems led her
husband the Emperor Napoleon, in 1808, to remove a selection
of glyptics from the Cabinet des médailles, the celebrated gem
cabinet of the Kings of France (which today survives in the Bnf,
Paris), so that they could be set within an elaborate parure,
which proved too heavy for the Empress to wear.
These mythical scenes are interspersed with portrait heads of
unknown ancient worthies, which compare with examples such
as the 17th/ 18th century head of a balding man in the Beverley
Collection of Gems at Alnwick Castle, published by Scarisbrick,
Boardman and Wagner (op.
cit., p.
79, no. 71)
The cameo with
a bust of Minerva derives from a model which has been widely
described as 17th-century (and often with different attributes
and thus identifications); compare with the 17th-century
jugate portrait of Alexander (the present model) and Olympias
in the Royal Collection (inv.
RCIN 65237).
no. The Cameo
with Venus at the bath before an urn is derived from ancient
prototypes such as the two 1st-century AD cameos with similar
compositions at Alnwick (cf Scarisbrick et al, op
cit., pp.
48-49, nos.
41, 42).
The characterful head of Hercules follows a
model seen in Raspe-Tassie (no.
5589) which probably has its
roots in the head of the Hercules Farnese today in the National
Archaeological Museum, Naples.
For the cameo with a satyr,
compare with the circa 1800 example sold in these rooms on
9 July 2020, lot 39.
Both derive from ancient prototypes: see,
for example, the possibly 1st-century sardonyx cameo with
a faun in the Beverley Collection of Gems at Alnwick Castle
(illustrated in Scarisbrick, et al, op.
cit., p.
47, no. 40)
The present choker has been carefully conceived in order
to display a series of mythological heads and scenes, as
well as portrait heads, which are complementary but tell the
story of glyptic art from the Italian Renaissance to the age of
Neoclassicism.
The cameos include an Italian 18th-century
group with Venus seated amongst cupids and fishing for
the ‘genius of charm’, the model for which is recorded in the
Paoletti collection of glass moulds for impressions recently
published by Lucia Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli (op.cit.,
tome I, 5,
no.
287; ‘Li geni delli piaceri pescati da Venera coll’Amo dela
bellezza, e delli vezzi’).
The necklace is mounted with a late
18th-century cameo with Medusa, one of the archetypal
images of ancient gem engraving.
Roman examples,
distinguished by a haunted expression imbued with pathos, are
found in the greatest gem collections, including a 3rd-century
AD example in the Royal Collection (inv.
no.
RCIN 65605).
RELATED LITERATURE
R.
Raspe and W.
E. Tassie, A Descriptive Catalogue of a General
Collection of Ancient and Modern Engraved Gems Cameos as
well as Intaglios, London, 1791; K
Aschengreen Piacenti and
J.
Boardman, Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the
Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 2008; L.
Biroli Stefanelli, La collezione Paoletti, Stampi in vetro per
impronte di intagli e cammei, Rome, 2013; D.
Scarisbrick, C.
Wagner and J.
Pirzio
Boardman, The Beverley Collection of Gems at
Alnwick Castle, London and New York, 2017
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