The Interesting History Of Cameo Pendants

22 Oct 2008

There are certainly many types of jewelry that are popular; howver one of the most popular types of jewelry are cameo pendents. Cameo pendants are pieces of jewelry that are made from the method of carving. This gives the pendant an absolutely beautifully raised and three dimensional element.

There is quite an interesting history behind the creation of cameos and anyone who owns or is thinking about owning cameo pendants may be interested in learning about the history of this very popular jewlery and how cameo pendants came to be popular all around the world, considered to be elegant jewelry.

The word cameo refers to carvings, and cameo pendants are pieces of jewelry that have been carved to show images that raise out from the base that they are on. The way that a coin is made is a version of a cameo; Abe Lincoln on the United States penny for example is a side cameo protrait of the former president. His image is raised off of the coin.

Cameo pendants have been popular since the times of the ancient Greeks back in the sixth century BC. The ancient Romans crafted cameo pendants and they were very popular among the royal emperors. The popularity of cameo pendants has never lessened; the cameo was still very popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The art of making cameo pendants continued as we approached the 1800’s and the famous poet Gheophile Gautier entitled a collection of poems “Enamels and Cameos”.

You may wonder who’s face it is that we see on cameo pendants. The original cameo pendants dispicted rulers of Greece and Rome or faces of characterst that were in their mythology. Later, cameo pendants were made of those of royalty who gave them to their subjects as gifts. Some of these have been found and are now preserved. We see that cameo pendants were made showing Roman rulers.

The way cameo pendants are made is very interesting. Two different types of materials are used and they are usually semi precious or presious stones. The most usual type of cameo is the side portrait of a person’s face. This is carved into one of the materials and then once that is done, it is put upon the second material which will be the base that holds it. The second material is usually a different color than the first, which allows the carving to show very well.
Another way in which cameo pendants are crafted is when the maker will use the same material for all parts of the cameo pendants; however the layers of the material will be different colors. If the crafter is using a material that is the same color no matter what its layer, they may then use dyes to color the cameo as they see fit. The color difference is usually done to make a strong impact; common colors for backgrounds are white, black or blue.
Supply and demand dictates what the public wishes for, and since the cameo pendants are so popular, manuafacturs have had to find a way to make them quickly. In modern times, machines are used to create cameo pendants; they are called Ultrasonic Mills. These make pendants based off of one master design and this way many cameo pendants can be created at one time.