A hardstone cameo by Elena Pistrucci (1822-1886) mounted by Garrard,
London, circa 1855-1860
a sardonyx cameo depicting the goddess Ceres, who in ancient Rome was associated with fertility and the harvest, her face and hair picked out in a white striation of the stone, wearing a crown of wheat and poppy flowers which has been ingeniously engraved into a black band of the sardonyx. Mounted in a yellow gold brooch with a twisted wirework border.
Signed: ‘E PISTRUCCI’
Length: 3.7cm
£6,850
Presented in its original leather presentation case, the lid satin stamped ‘R&S GARRARD & Co, Goldsmiths, Jewellers &c to The Queen, His Royal Highness The Prince Consort & All the Royal Family, Panton Street, London’ beneath a crown.
Elena Pistrucci was born in London in 1822 and was the daughter of the famous gem engraver Benedetto Pistrucci (1783-1855). He was Chief Engraver and Chief Medallist to the Royal Mint and was well known in the 19th Century for an altercation with the collector Richard Payne Knight. Pistrucci claimed authorship of one of Payne Knight’s prized cameo fragments, claiming he had been commissioned to carve it, whilst Payne Knight believed it to be an ancient masterpiece. Pistrucci was challenged to exactly recreate the fragment to prove his claim. The incident brought him much notoriety in London, as an engraver whose talents rivalled those of the masters of antiquity. The fragment now resides in the British Museum (1824,0301.86).
Both Elena and her sister Maria Elisa Pistrucci (1824-1881) trained as gem engravers. Given her father’s prominence in London and his employment at the Royal Mint, it is fitting to find this example of Elena’s work sold by Garrards, who had been appointed Royal Jeweller by Queen Victoria in 1843.
Another hardstone cameo by Elena Pistrucci depicting the goddess Ceres can be found in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (40.20.47).