Cameo Portrait of Tsar Alexander I

Description

Russian, circa 1815

Shell, within a gold mount, 3.4cm high

This cameo can be compared to a French medal by Bertrand Andrieu dated 1814 commemorating the Tsar’s visit to Paris in 1814, and to an onyx cameo, possibly Italian, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York .

In this cameo compared to the medal the nose and chin are finer and more sensitive, Alexander has less of a bull neck, the image is less heroic and indeed closer to the Emperor’s profile as it was known in Russia; also his hairline has receded behind the laurel wreath in this cameo, whereas on the medal and the Met cameo a curl of hair comes forward under the laurel wreath onto the middle of his forehead.