Italian, probably Milan, circa 1600 | Cameo with the Head of a Lion

Please note that the material of this lot is tiger’s eye (in the 18th and 19th centuries this would have been termed cat’s eye)

Baron Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757);
Johann Lorenz Natter (1705-1763);
‘A French gentleman’;
from whom acquired by George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (1739-1817), Blenheim Palace Oxfordshire;
thence by family descent to John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough (1822-1883), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire;
David Bromilow, Bitteswell Hall, Lutterworth, until 1898;
by descent to Julia Harriet Mary Jary (née Bromilow);
Christie, Manson and Woods London, Catalogue of the Marlborough Gems: Being a Collection of Works in Cameo and Intaglio Formed by George, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, 27 June 1899, lot 717, £130 to C. Davis;
Christie’s London, 15 July 1969, lot 56, £189;
French private collection until 2019

Album of photographs of the Marlborough gems, 1875, p. 11, pl. 6, no. 5;
M. H. Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems, introduction p. xvii, and p. 116, no. 717;
J. Boardman, D. Scarisbrick, C. Wagner and E. Zwierlein-Diehl, The Marlborough Gems formerly at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, Oxford, 2009, p. 235, no. 531;
J. Boardman et al., Natter’s Museum Britannicum, 2017, p. 216, no. 516, pl. L7