GIUSEPPE (1770-1856) OR NICCOLÒ CERBARA (1796-1858) ITALIAN, ROME, FIRST HALF 19TH CENTURY | CAMEO WITH ANTINOUS OR THE YOUNG HERAKLES

Giuseppe Cerbara was one of the foremost gem engravers in Rome in the first half of the 19th-century. A contemporary of Thorvaldsen, he became a member of the Academy of San Luca in 1812 and went on to become Incisore Camerale to the Papal Mint, and subsequently was appointed Incisore Particolare Dei Sommi Pontefici by Pope Leo XII. He later gained an international reputation, becoming member of the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna and then at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp. His younger brother Niccolò was also an engraver who collaborated with his elder brother at the Papal Mint. Compare the present, particularly fine cameo of a young man, with Giuseppe Cerbara's Hercules published in T. Holman (ed.), Multum in Parvo: A Collection of Engraved Gems, exh. cat. Wartski, London, pp. 136-137, no. 75