ITALIAN, PROBABLY MILAN, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY | CAMEO WITH A PERSONIFICATION OF ABUNDANCE

Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) and Pierre Bergé (1930-2017);

their sale Christie's Paris 25 February 2009, Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, lot 476

This beautiful cameo is very close to another mounted on an important enamelled cup in the Swedish royal collection, Stockholm (cf. Venturelli, op. cit., p. 34, fig. 8); the composition is the same but in reverse. The present cameo depicts Abundance holding a vase overflowing with fruit and wearing an elaborate necklace about her neck and pearl-drop earrings falling from her ears. The cameo compares with another from the Medici collection in the Museo degli Argenti at the Pitti Palace in Florence, catalogued as Italian, second half of the 16th century (op. cit., no. 60). Note the similar pose with one arm raised and the other spread across the belly. As in the present cameo the eyes are pierced and there is a sash with a floral clasp similar to the rosettes forming the necklace in the present carving.

There is a stylistic and conceptual affinity between the present cameo and examples like it with hardstone carvings from the celebrated Milanese Miseroni Workshop. Compare, for example, with the cameo with Venus and Cupid from the workshop of Ottavio Miseroni in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. antikensammlung, XII 141).

RELATED LITERATURE

R. Gennaioli, Le gemme dei Medici al Museo degli Argenti: Cammei e Intagli nelle collezioni di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 2007, p. 178, no. 60; P. Venturelli, 'Introduzione', in R. Gennaioli, Le gemme dei Medici al Museo degli Argenti: Cammei e Intagli nelle collezioni di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 2007, p. 34, fig. 8