Description: It's quite rare to find a good hardstone cameo, most are made from shell as its a softer, easier to carve material This one has been carved from a section of banded agate with the white part carefully taken away to leave the black onyx background. Even rarer still to find one mounted on a gold locket (in fact it might be the only one we've ever seen). A very striking, small, unusually little locket.
Age: c1840-50 Early Victorian
Size and weight: 7.8g. 3.1cm to top of bail, 2.1cm wide.
Materials: Onyx cameo, Gold (fineness TBC but assume 9ct) slight rosy hue but not quite full rose gold, glass inside
Condition: Good antique condition. Tiny ding in the gold at 12 o'clock as you can see, not distracting, and a smaller one to reverse. The loop attached to the locket was almost worn through so we had this built back up (you wouldn't know if we hadn't told you).The agate back has been carved to follow the striation in the rock so is not perfectly flat and is sort of undulating - which we think is nice but worth mentioning here. Inside there is glass on one side only which may or may not have always ben the case. We have not tried to take the glass out as the fewer times this is done, the better as can be a bit fiddly. So you can get 2 photos in there but only one behind glass.
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