Carved Onyx Cameo to Match Diagram
A jeweler had a customer who was a history professor at a local university. The professor had a photo of an ancient Roman coin and wanted to know if the image could be carved into a black and white Onyx cameo.
Black and white layered Onyx can be hard to find. But the Tucson gem show was coming up in a month and they said their customer was not in a hurry. I put it on my list of items to find at the gem show. When I was at the gem show I found a layered Onyx cameo which was carved with the image of a woman with long flowing hair. I measured it and found that it was just large enough to be re-carved into the cameo that my customer wanted.
I found that my smallest tools couldn't quite make the smallest details that I needed. I remembered that when I was recently having some dental work done by a friend of mine who was a dentist, he told me I could use his high speed air drill if I ever wished to use it. I called him and he invited me over to use it. He had some fine tools which allowed me to get the fine detail around the eyes and nose of the soldier.
Below, you will see a photo of the finished Cameo.
Cameo of Roman Soldier
At left you can see the photo of the Roman coin which we copied and also the finished cameo.
→ Take me back to examples of Carvings we have done to match a Diagram
Denton Anderson,
Gemologist & Gem Cutter
click photo for Video
Graduate Gemologist, GIA, GG
Over 20 years of experience.
