Cameo of a bust of an African man, undercut, in profile to the left. He wears a mantle fastened over his left shoulder.

The subject is common in late Mannerist cameos. Using the black layer of the stone for the relief against a white background to invert the conventional colour scheme of a cameo held particular appeal at the time.

Black Africans were occasionally to be seen in seventeenth-century Europe, but this figure is likely to have been derived from idealised images rather than taken from life. Unlike more sensitive renderings from the same date, this cameo seems to exaggerate the figure's features.

Text adapted from Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2008