Cameo depicting Apollo and Daphne: part of a set of eight onyx cameos of mythological and agricultural scenes mounted on gold and enamel petal-like mounts.

Small gems showing a variety of mythological and classical genre scenes were typically cut to be mounted into hardstone vases or gold and enamelled cups and bowls. They were produced in large numbers in the Milanese hardstone workshops of the sixteenth century. Their French seventeenth-century enamel mounts include lateral loops, however, which indicate that these seem to have been intended to be worn, either strung on a necklace or as other dress ornaments. Certainly in 1763, when Walpole made his additions to the Vertue inventory of the cabinet rooms, he noted ‘many cameos, small set in enamel as if designed for buttons’.

Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714 - 1760, London, 2014