Description
Literature:
In the fifteenth century, the humanist movement in Renaissance led to an exponential interest in Classical Antiquity, which included a growing appreciation for the art of gem engraving.
In this case, the double portrait is itself inspired by Antiquity also. The iconography of two profiles facing each other goes back to the ancient world, such as cameos and coins from Hellenistic Greek and Roman periods. For early examples, see: Cameo with Emperor Augustus and Livia, mid-first century AD (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg inv. no. GR-12597); Cameo with two members of the Imperial family either Caligula or Claudius as Jupiter Ammon and Juno Isis, 37 50AD (British Museum, London; inv. no. 1899, 0722.1); Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, c. 166 AD (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, inv. no. Camée 29). These Classical style double portraits continued well into the sixteenth century, with notable examples made for Medici family. During the 18th century in Georgian England rings with diamond-studded borders surrounding portraits, gemstones or cameos became highly fashionable, see: Scarisbrick 1993, pp. 138-139; Scarisbrick 2007, pp. 318 f., nos. 446, 448 (for diamond rings) and Diana /Claudia Wagner/John Boardman, The Beverley Collection of Gems at Alnwick Castle, London 2017, p. 22, no. 17; p. 67, no. 59 (with cameos).
This cameo is carved in low relief, and is reminiscent of an earlier cameo, from the 2nd half of the 13th century, probably made in Paris, depicting a girl and a boy, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (exh. cat. Die Kunst des Steinshcnitts. Prunkgefäße, Kameen und Commessi aus der Kunstkammer, Milano 2002, pp.64-5, no. 19 with further parallels).
The male profile head on this cameo appears ancient in type and resembles that of the Roman Emperor Augustus. The woman facing him is closer to Renaissance examples and resembles female heads on marriage portraits from about 1450-1500, cf. Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, by Fra Filippo Lippi, c. 1440 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 8915.19); Portrait of a Lady by Ambrogio de Predis, c. 1490 (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan).