Located on Government Hill, the World's Fair Pavilion sits on the site of the world's fair Missouri Government that was meant to be permanent but burned only weeks before the closing of the fair. It opened in 1910 as a gift from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Committee and helped to fulfill their promise to restore the park after the 1904 World's Fair. Designed by English architect Henry Wright, the pavilion originally cost $35,000 to build.
In the early 2000s, the building underwent a $1.1 million restoration with the addition of new restrooms and a catering kitchen. The eastern archways of the building were removed (thereby opening the building to its original state), new lighting was installed, and the twin towers of the building were reconstructed.
The Jewel Box (also known as the St. Louis Floral Conservatory and the City of St. Louis Floral Display House) is a greenhouse located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri. It now serves as a public horticultural facility and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
In 1913, Nelson Cunliff became Commissioner of Parks and Recreation for St. Louis City. Due to high levels of smoke and soot within the city, he began a survey to determine which plants could survive the conditions. He later asked John Moritz, who was in charge of the city's greenhouses, to set up a display greenhouse to showcase various plants which could survive. It is said that someone called the displays "like a jewel box", hence the name. In 1933, Bernard Dickmann became Mayor of St. Louis and decided to build a new facility. The building cost $125,000 and William C. E. Becker, then Chief Engineer of Bridges and Buildings for the city, was assigned to design the building. Construction began on December 12, 1935 and the facility opened on November 14, 1936.
Judge Mary Bartelme
wearing a cameo at her throat, on a high lace collar in the
Edwardian style.
Cameo is a method of carving an object such as an engraved gem, item of jewelry or vessel made in this manner. It nearly always features a raised (positive) relief image; contrast with intaglio, which has a negative image.
Originally, and still in discussing historical work, cameo only
referred to works where the relief image was of a contrasting color to
the background; this was achieved by carefully carving a piece of
material with a flat plane where two contrasting colors met, removing
all the first color except for the image to leave a contrasting
background.
Today the term may be used very loosely for objects with no color
contrast, and other, metaphorical, terms have developed, such as cameo appearance. This derives from another generalized meaning that has developed, the cameo as an image of a head in an oval frame in any medium, such as a photograph.
Ancient and Renaissance cameos were made from semi-precious gemstones, especially the various types of onyx and agate, and any other stones with a flat plane where two contrasting colors meet; these are "hardstone" cameos. In cheaper modern work, shell and glass are more common. Glass cameo vessels, such as the famous Portland Vase, were also developed by the Romans.
Modern cameos can be produced by setting a carved relief, such as a portrait, onto a background of a contrasting color. This is called an assembled cameo. Alternatively, a cameo can be carved by the traditional, but far more difficult, method directly out of a material with integral layers or banding, such as (banded) agate or layered glass, where different layers have different colors. Sometimes dyes are used to enhance these colors.
"The Little Museum of Cameo Tower of Greek (NA)
shows us the entire processing phase of a cameo,
from the shell to a unique jewel of its kind."
During the Roman period the cameo technique was used on glass blanks, in imitation of objects being produced in agate or sardonyx. Cameo glass
objects were produced in two periods; between around 25 BC and 50/60
AD, and in the later Empire around the mid-third and mid-fourth century. Roman glass cameos are rare objects, with only around two hundred fragments and sixteen complete pieces known, only one of which dates from the later period. During the early period they usually consisted of a blue glass base with a white overlying layer, but those made during the later period usually have a colorless background covered with a translucent colored layer.
Blanks could be produced by fusing two separately cast sheets of glass,
or by dipping the base glass into a crucible of molten overlay glass
during blowing. The most famous example of a cameo from the early period is the Portland Vase.
Although occasionally used in Roman cameos, the earliest prevalent use of shell for cameo carving was during the Renaissance,
in the 15th and 16th centuries. Before that time, cameos were carved
from hardstone. The Renaissance cameos are typically white on a grayish
background and were carved from the shell of a mussel or cowry, the latter a tropical mollusk.
In the mid 18th century, explorations revealed new shell varieties. Helmet shells (Cassis tuberosa) from the West Indies, and queen conch shells (Eustrombus gigas) from the Bahamas
and West Indies, arrived in Europe. This sparked a big increase in the
number of cameos that were carved from shells. Conch shells carve very
well, but their color fades over time.
After 1850 demand for cameos grew, as they became popular souvenirs of the Grand Tour among the middle class.
Classically the designs carved onto cameo stones were either scenes of
Greek or Roman mythology or portraits of rulers or important
dignitaries. In history, agate portrait cameos were often gifts from
royalty to their subjects. These antique cameos, some more than 2000
years old, are either displayed in museums or are in private
collections.
Sir Wallis Budge
alleged that the noun "Cameo" apparently comes from Kame'o, a word used
in kabbalistic slang to signify a "magical square", i. e. a kind of
talisman whereupon magical spells was carved.
Cameos are often worn as jewelry, but in ancient times were mainly used for signet rings and large earrings, although the largest examples were probably too large for this, and were just admired as objets d'art. Stone cameos of great artistry were made in Greece dating back as far as the 3rd century BC. The Farnese Tazza (a cup) is the oldest major Hellenistic piece surviving. They were very popular in Ancient Rome, especially in the family circle of Augustus. The most famous stone "state cameos" from this period are the Gemma Augustea, the Gemma Claudia made for the Emperor Claudius, and the largest flat engraved gem known from antiquity, the Great Cameo of France.
Roman Cameos became less common around in the years leading up to 300AD
although production continued at a much reduced rate right through the
Middle Ages.
The technique has since enjoyed periodic revivals, notably in the early Renaissance, and again in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Neoclassical revival began in France with Napoleon's support of the glyptic arts, and even his coronation crown was decorated with cameos.
In Britain, this revival first occurred during King George III's reign, and his granddaughter, Queen Victoria,
was a major proponent of the cameo trend, to the extent that they would
become mass-produced by the second half of the 19th century.
The visual art form of the cameo has even inspired at least one writer of more recent times, the 19th-century Russian poet Lev Mei, who composed a cycle of six poems entitled Камеи (Cameos, 1861), as reflections on each of the Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Nero. In 1852 Théophile Gautier titled a collection of his highly polished, lapidary poems Emaux et Camées (Enamels and Cameos). Many modern cameos are carved into layered agates. The layers are dyed
to create strong color contrasts. The most usual colors used for
two-layer stones are white on black,
white on blue, and white on red-brown. Three-layer stones are sometimes
made. The colors are usually black on white on black. The layers are
translucent; this allows the artist to create shading effects by
removing material to allow the background layer to show through. This
way a very realistic, lifelike quality to a figure can be achieved. For
example, thinning the top black layer on a three-layer stone changes its
color to shades of brown. Removing material from the white layer
creates shades of blue or grey, depending on the color of the base.
The majority of modern agate cameos are carved with the aid of the
Ultrasonic Mill. This is a process where multiple copies of a master
design can be produced very quickly by pressing a master die onto the
agate cameo blank. A film of diamond slurry is used to aid cutting and
the die vibrates ultrasonically in a vertical motion. The master is
often hand carved by a skilled cameo artist. The result is a cameo that
has a satin surface texture described as "freshly fallen snow" (FFS) by
Anna Miller. This texture and the lack of any undercutting are used by appraisers as markers to prove that the cameo is machine-made.
Cameos carved by hand are usually working from photographs of
the subject. The fact that there is usually only one copy made means
that the tooling costs involved rule out the ultrasonic carving process. There are very few people working in this field, as this is one of
the hardest challenges for any gemstone carver. The combination of a
highly developed artistic ability, craft skill and many years of
experience are needed to be able to create lifelike portraits.
It is quite rare, these days, for subjects other than portraits to be
carved by hand as agate cameos. The traditional themes of classical
scenes from mythology or a standard image of a young lady, are more
likely to be made with the help of the ultrasonic carving machine as a
limited collection of typically 50–200 pieces.
Since the late 19th century, the species most used in good-quality cameos has been Cypraecassis rufa,
the bullmouth helmet, the shell of which can be up to 6 inches long. In
this species, the upper shell layer is whitish, and the lower shell
layer is a rich orange-brown. Modern sources for this shell are Madagascar and South Africa. The finest hand-carving of these shells takes place in Italy. The most highly prized shell for carving is the emperor or queen's helmet shell, Cassis madagascariensis.
This shell has white and dark brown layers and is known as sardonyx
shell, and looks similar to the layered agate known as sardonyx. This
shell is found in the waters of the Caribbean.
The world center for cameo carving in shell today is Torre del Greco,
Italy. The shells are first marked with a series of ovals in a process
called signing, then cut into oval blanks for the cameo carver. The
actual cameo is mainly cut with a metal scraping tool called a bulino, an invention of Jewish artisan Antonio Cimeniello.
A number of metal gravers are used: flat-faced, round and
three-cornered. To speed production, grinding wheels are used to quickly
remove excess material. When the details are completed, the shell is
then soaked in olive oil, cleaned with soap and water and selectively
polished with a hand brush.
More Information About Cameos and Contemporary Artists:
Above, three of five different dress designs for this 1927 bride's party, plus two identically dressed flower girls.
Just before the organ peals forth the wedding march, with what suppressed excitement the bridal party wait their cue to assemble! For just as vital as clothes, to the correct wedding, is the conventional order of the procession: bridesmaids come first, two by two; maid of honor next, and alone; the flower girls ahead of the bride, and the bride last on the arm of her nearest male relative.
Observe this bride's gown of ivory satin. It offers the classical simplicity demanded of the smart bride in 1927. It has a clever arrangement of two trains instead of the usual one. How lovely the bridal attendants look in their modish frocks, wide hats, and satin slippers! In vivid contrast to the purity of the bride's white, the bridesmaids may appear each in a different color-- a sort of rainbow processional.
This 1920s fashion plate shows the bridal veil long in back and short in front.
An occasion on which a Western woman is likely to wear a veil is on her white wedding day. Brides
once used to wear their hair flowing down their back at their wedding
to symbolize their virginity. Veils covering the hair and face became a
symbolic reference to the virginity of the bride thereafter. A bride may
wear the face veil through the ceremony. Then either her father lifts
the veil, presenting the bride to her groom, or the groom lifts the veil
to symbolically consummate the marriage. Brides may make use of the
veil to symbolize and emphasize their status of purity during their
wedding however, and if they do, the lifting of the veil may be
ceremonially recognized as the crowning event of the wedding, when the
beauty of the bride is finally revealed to the groom and the guests.
In modern weddings, the ceremony of removing a face veil after the
wedding to present the groom with the bride may not occur, since couples
may have entered into conjugal relations prior to the wedding and it
may also be considered sexist for the bride to have her face covered
whether or not the veil is a sign of virginity.
In Scandinavia, brides wear a veil usually under a traditional crown
but do not have their face covered (instead the veil is attached to and
hangs from the back).
During the 1920s, modern brides typically wore their hair short
and their veils short across the front of their face only.