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sarahd53 · ‎04-29-2022

When I got this I wasn't sure it was gold but I tested with 14k acid and it passed. I was wondering a couple things.

1. Is the person anyone special?

2. Is there any place I can find comparable fair prices for a piece like this? I searched Google and a couple auction sites but found very few like it.

3. There is a white powder like substance on the cameo. Has anyone seen this on malachite before? I'm wondering if it is indeed malachite and if so maybe it was cleaned with something that created this look?

4 should it be cleaned or sold as is? (I like to keep patina so I rarely clean antiques)

5 how old would you guess it is? Victorian?

As always thanks for any help

sonomabarn67 · ‎04-30-2022

Just a thought but have you considered having a jeweler give you a 2nd opinion on the gold test? Have you determined what that greasy looking build up on the metal is?

sarahd53 · ‎05-01-2022

I assume tarnish/dirt/debris. I once had a gold pin from Ming dynasty China that looked like brass it was so dirty, and when the jeweler told me gold I couldn't believe it. I have a jeweler friend that I can double check with, but I haven't personally had the acid test not work.

After doing some research, I believe the person on this brooch is Bucchus/Dionysos. It's hard to see the carving underneath all the white powder residue. Some carvings range from ancient Rome to the present. The carving could be older and was made into a brooch somewhere in the 19th c. I think if a professional cleaned up the gold and applied oil to the carving it would look like the day it was made. If you search malachite cameo there are quite a few of Bucchus that were sold by Sotheby's.

sonomabarn67 · ‎05-01-2022

Out of my league then. I was simply trying to help you not accept a possible false positive if it was plated gold. It happens. i didn't realize that Sotheby's was at play on this one. I'll go to my room now.

maxine*j · ‎05-01-2022

@sarahd53 wrote:
... 3. There is a white powder like substance on the cameo. Has anyone seen this on malachite before? I'm wondering if it is indeed malachite and if so maybe it was cleaned with something that created this look?...

All I can tell you is that:

I have never seen malachite with white highlighting or residue or whatever that is. So if it is malachite, I would take it as some sort of damage.

No matter how narrow or faint, I have always been able to see the banding on malachite. Malachite is never a solid color, but always has banding, waves, squiggles, swirls, varying in lightness and darkness. (And perhaps your piece does, but I cannot see them in the photos.)

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sarahd53 · ‎05-01-2022

Yeah I get where you're coming from. I myself didn't think it was gold when I first saw it.

I did 3 acid tests on this piece; 10k, 14k, and 18k. It passed the 10k and 14k, but failed with 18k. I am not saying I couldn't be wrong. I plan on reaching out to my jeweler friend and double checking.

I try google a lot with image searches and key words, but only a handful of cameos like this popped up. I went to a couple of auction house websites searching for cameos. The best catalog of them was at Sotheby's where I went through 20 pages of cameos. Not saying they are at play but they had quite a few similar ones in past auctions.

sarahd53 · ‎05-01-2022

I will try and take better photos under good lighting tomorrow. I wet a tissue and wiped the back and it allowed me to see the stone better. It does have striping patterns. I haven't checked the face yet. I wasn't sure if it was a natural patina that helped to determine it's age so I was avoiding cleaning it. You could be right it might be damage. Maybe something acidic or a polish

mmadigan · ‎05-02-2022

I have been retired from teaching chemistry for 11 years so take what I say with a grain of salt. Malachite is a copper based mineral and will react with acids. Reaction of malachite with the common acids the copper salts produced will be the hydrated form and be blue to blue-green in color. I would not expect to see a white solid after being exposed to a common acid. Also the solids will be water soluble, so some water should clean them up.

That said if it was treated with acid and then a base was added such as lye it would be possible to produce calcium carbonate (chalk) as a precipitate.

My first thought it was damage but there was no damage to the high spots. I wonder if it was some type of early highlighting?

sarahd53 · ‎05-02-2022

So I cleaned the gold sections slightly with a soft bristle brush and a mild dish detergent. It's pretty hard to get the small tight areas cleaned up. I then gave it a light touching of mineral oil and wiped with a cotton swab. Surprisingly the carving looks better than I expected. Some nice detail in the hair. Ignore the piece of tissue paper showing in some parts of the photos.

In the past I have seen people go to polish a piece of silver jewelery with a stone. Afterwards the stone loses it's luster from something in the silver polish and it gives it a matte dull look. I don't know if that's what happened here but I can imagine someone thinking it's tarnished gold tone silver and rubbing the whole thing over with polish.

maxine*j · ‎05-03-2022

Big improvement in the looks of it!

I still don't see what I'd expect to see with malachite on the face, although I do now see what may be banding on the back. I also don't see Bacchus / Dionysus in particular, although it could be him. If it's a him.

None of that helps you, though, I'm sorry to say, except to lift the thread toward the top of the page.

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sarahd53 · ‎05-03-2022

I found this article while trying to look for the effects of silver polish on malachite. My guess is that the non visible banding on the face and front could be intentional. They over polish the stone to make the cameo a solid green color. Or perhaps mmadagan is write and it's an unfortunate side effect of an antique method of highlighting the piece. On a lot of the other malachite cameos that I've seen the banding is missing on the front; most have a solid green color.

lacemaker3 · ‎05-03-2022

@sarahd53, I agree with @maxine*j, that I don't see any of the black-and-green stripes or banding that I have typically seen on natural malachite, whether polished or not.

However, when I did a search for malachite cameos, I see that most of the images are showing a very even green shade, rather flat and bland compared to what I think of as malachite.

I suspect that, if these really are malachite, they may have chosen the more evenly colored pieces to be carved into cameos, so that the dynamic stripes and banding would not interfere with the appearance of the detailed carving. That could be considered to be turning an otherwise undesirable feature into an advantage. Or, looking at it from the other point of view, malachite pieces with visible stripes are not suitable for making into cameos.

maeday76 · ‎05-04-2022

The style of the face is late Roman/very early Byzantine, and could be original to that period and was set or re-set in the 19th century, or it could have been created, wholly, in the late 17/early 1800s, during the neoclassical revival craze. The same period that brought you Robert Adams' laurel motifs and Jane Austens' empire waistlines.

As for the identification of Bacchus/Dionysus, I have reservations. I feel like this is a female, although there are examples of male hairstyles that are similar to this. I hesitate for a couple reasons, not least because gods, like saints, were typically shown with some kind of identifying element, like grapes (Bacchus) or arrows (St. Sebastian.)

The gold setting is so well preserved if it is of the Napoleonic period, it was seldom worn and carefully stored.

I'm curious to know what you find.

donsdetour · ‎05-04-2022

I suspect glass not malachite but there is a glass that is malachite glass.

Are you using acid from a test kit or pure nitric??

The first one can give false positives as it is not pure nitric...

Have it retested.

sarahd53 · ‎05-05-2022

Thanks for the reply. That's very helpful. The dating of it is the predicament I am in. I thought the same thing; that it could be a found piece of Roman malachite and set in gold at some point in 19th C, or crafted entirely during the same time frame. I'm not really sure how to go about this.

In regards to Bacchus I took a guess based on others I found. After polishing, and seeing the texture and hair I can see how it could be a woman. Do you think it's likely someone of significance or just a cameo of an ordinary person?