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Rare and important 18th century hardstone cameo and diamond ring, depicting Catherine the Great, with applied diamond necklace

Royal Portrait Cameo Habillé

Description: Gold and silver ring, the diamond border surrounding an onyx cameo portrait of a young woman, probably Catherine II of Russia when Archduchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, her hair plaited over the crown of the head and swept up above the nape of the neck, ringlets falling below. Above her draped neckline she is habillé with a diamond choker with pendant and faces in profile towards the left. Mid 18 th century

Commentary: Here the artist has captured the determination, ambition and character of the young Catherine II, Empress of Russia 1762-1796. This marble like portrait compares with another, similarly in profile, of the young Empress, see F.Eichler & E. Kris, Die Kameen im Kunsthistorischen Museum (Vienna 1927) no. 580, Plate 75 by D.F. Schubin, dated 1763.- just after her accession to the throne of Russia. As for the diamonds which embellish the cameo, although the future Empress wears nothing similar in any of the portraits surviving from this early period of her life, the Italian artist Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707-62) in 1757 depicted her with a blue ribbon tied like a choker at the neck, which indicates her awareness in this type of fashionable ornament, illustrated in Catherine the Great and Gustave III, Exhibition at the National Museum, Stockholm (October 1998-February 1999) p. 87. She is the most frequently portrayed of all Russian rulers, not only in paintings, sculpture and in medals but also as here, in engraved gems, an art of which, as Empress, she became the greatest patron of the eighteenth century.