Italian, Milan, or Bohemian, Prague, circa 1600 | Cameo with a Bust of the Virgin

Chenel collection, Paris

The present model representing the Virgin Mary appears to be derived from a bronze medal attributed to Antonio Abondio the Younger (1538-1591). Cameos with this subject were frequently carved in heliotrope, and paired with gems representing Christ, also after a model attributed to Abondio. Most of these jewels are likely to have been created within Abondio's orbit in Milan and at the courts of the Holy Roman Emperors in Prague in the late 16th and early 17th century, including by members of the Miseroni family. A number of variants are preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, as well as in the Museo degli Argenti in Florence. Another heliotrope with the Virgin facing to the sinister, which compares closely to the present gem, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 39.22.6). 

RELATED LITERATURE
E. Kris, Renaissance-Kleinkunst in Italien, Leipzig, 1935, no. 621; R. Gennaioli, Le gemme dei Medici al Museo degli Argenti: Cammei e Intagli nelle collezioni di Palazzo Pitti, Florence and Milan, 2007, nos. 429, 434, and 437