Portrait cameo bust of Philip II of Spain (1527-98), in profile to the left. He wears a cuirass with a lion’s mask epaulette, a ruff and cloak.

The high quality of this gem, and the intense characterisation of the sitter, justifies an attribution to Jacopo Nizolla da Trezzo. Da Trezzo worked for Philip II and moved to Madrid in 1559. The cameo may have arrived in England between 1554 and 1558 when Philip II was King Consort to Mary I.

This cameo was almost certainly that mentioned in Van der Doort's catalogue of Charles I's collection 'Item another Aggatt stoane of king Phillipp of Spain the head being white the breast brownish and the ground transparent like to a glasse delived to me by yo' Ma.ty' and in the margin 'given to your Ma.ty 1637'. It is also probably identifiable with one of two cameos of Philip II noted as ‘2 [gems] of Philp 2’, in June 1763, by Horace Walpole in his list of ‘Other pictures & curiosities’ of the late Queen Caroline, consort of George II, in a cabinet at Kensington Palace (RA GEO/Add.Ms.16). It was also the ‘King Philip 2d, not set’ that was sent by Walpole to her grandson, George III, on 22 March 1764.

The cameo has been remounted, probably for Queen Caroline. Queen Caroline’s cameos are testament to her interest in the courts of Europe. Among the other princes represented among the gem collection were cameos of Mary, Queen of Scots, Henri IV of France, and Emperor Leopold, cut in amethyst. In turn these were supplemented by coins, including a full set of English monarchs from William I onwards, waxes of numerous German princes and Pope Benedict XIV, a bas relief of Emperor Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy and a woven silk picture of Charles I.

Text adapted from Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2008 and The First Georgians; Art and Monarchy 1714 – 1760, London 2014.