French Antique Cameo
The muse invoked sits down to write about a French Antique Cameo making method, practiced in Tours in the early 20th century. Rising with Aurora's light goddess of the dawn, leads the sun god Apollo on his chariot at break-o-day, bringing in daylight to the world and shedding light on a bizarre enterprise involving collecting flecks of gold from a river and an equally bizarre French Antique Cameo making modus operandi in the early 1900s, in Tours, in France. In this region of France, a rare form of cameo jewelry making, had commenced hundreds of years before. Tours is a picture-perfect, quaint, historic French town with a population of around 130,000, located approximately 135 miles southwest of Paris. The superior cameo of high quality that was produced in Tours, was due to the unusual method of of its making, which is no longer practiced today because of the very long length of time it takes to produce just one of these rare cameo beauties. In the history of the cameo made in Tours , it is the magic of water from two rivers that weave through the city that tell the tale. The River Loire and the River Cher both flow through the town and the cliffs above the River Cher between Tours and Savonnieres are lined with prehistoric grottos. (A grotto is a small cave, usually of great natural beauty or unusual in appearance). This French antique cameo is formed by the natural action of water dripping in the grottos. The rate of stalagmite growth varies according to the amount of dripping water, the limestone type, and the evaporation rate of the carbon dioxide. At best, it is about 7/16 inch per 100 years! At its fastest, the thickest cameo known to be produced in this manner would have taken at least 125 years to form! An Antique cameo in the truest sense. No craftsman who created a matrix and placed it upon a post would live to see the fruits of his labor so very few people had such conviction. Basically, a matrix (mold) was carved intaglio to give the proper shape or form to material introduced into it. The matrices were made from papier mache-and were placed upon short posts in places where water was dripping from the ceiling. After a number of years, they were filled with the lime and minerals in the water, and at long last, the cameo were formed. A finishing touch-up to the carving was done to reach their final beauty, producing a genuine Antique cameo of priceless value. Dear reader, if you have acquired such an Antique cameo, from Tours France, created through this unique process, described above, do make other
jewelry investors and collectors
smile, and consider sharing the story of your cameo beauty with us by posting in
Your Favorite Jewelry.
1. Wikipedia 2. Museo Archeologico Nazionale ci Napoli 3. Zeitner, J.C., Lapidary Journal 'Color Basic to Carving' February, 1988. 4. Schumann, W., Gemstones of the World, Newly Revised & Expanded Third Edition, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. New York. (First Edition, 1976)
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