Sardonyx Cameo Brooch

Dateca. 1850

Dimensions32.40 x 23.05 x 11.40 mm

ClassificationsCostume

Credit LineThe Edward Arthur Metzger Gemstone Collection

Terms

Costume

Object numberEAM 281

Label CopySardonyx is a variety of onyx in which layers of white chalcedony named after the Greek word for “claw” or “nail” (onyx) alternate with red sard (or carnelian), which is sometimes etymologically related to the Greek for “flesh” (sarx). Pliny observes that the stone has a distinctly corporeal character, for the banded layers look “like flesh superimposed on a human finger-nail” (37.86).

Sardonyx’s parallel bands of color also made it an ideal medium for cameo engraving, in which the image is carved in positive relief. The strong color contrasts created by cameo techniques in stone, ceramics, glass, and shell were enthusiastically adopted in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, as seen in this neoclassical example, styled to imitate images of Roman goddesses and women of the imperial family.

(Verity J. Platt, “Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder,” exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Verity J. Platt, presented at the Johnson Museum January 21–June 11, 2023)