PROBABLY FRENCH, CIRCA 1550-1560

Details

A CIRCULAR SARDONYX CAMEO REPRESENTING A HORSEMAN
PROBABLY FRENCH, CIRCA 1550-1560
the reverse decorated in translucent enamel with a foliate landscape below and clouds above and inscribed 'CELVM. ET TERRAM'; the enameled gold border with a Baroque pearl pendant probably late 19th century
1 2⁄3 in. (4.2 cm.) diameter, the cameo
3 ½ in. (8.5 cm.) high, overall

Provenance

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905), in the Entresol, hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris
Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), in the Fumoir sur la cour, hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris.
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France after May 1940 (ERR no. R 2362).
Transferred to Germany.
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP no. 1371/12).
Returned to and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.

Literature

The Rothschild Archive, London, Inventaire après le décès de Monsieur le Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, A. Cottin Notaire, 16 October 1905 (hôtel Saint-Florentin, Entresol, ‘Bijou camée, Cavalier XVIe siècle - 500 francs’).
Y. Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, Munich/New York, 1979, p. 70, fig. 156.

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

The Latin inscription on the reverse of the present cameo mount 'CELVM ET TERRAM' is translated as 'Heaven and Earth' and may have formed part of a family motto of the person who originally commissioned the enamel.

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