A chalcedony intaglio signed Tonnellier, set in a gold 14K pendant. Diana hunting.

End of 19th century

Intaglio : 12 x 15 mm2,0 g

The deity wears an elegant fitted tunic and faces left. The huntress is in the act of looking for an arrow to shoot with a bow. At her feet, a running dog. Groundline.Georges Tonnelier (1858 - 1937), whose name is sometimes spelled «Tonnellier», was the student in Paris of A. Millet and Charles Gauthier. First destined for statuary, he began engraver of gems quite late, around the age of twenty-seven, under the auspices of master Jules-Clement Chaplain. He was an engraver constantly praised by fans and critics of this art at the end of the 19th century: his intaglios were masterpieces where “precision does not exclude grace”, and considered to be «one of the most ardent renovators of his art» (see among others the magazines Art & Décoration, vol. 6, 1899, and La Revue de l’Art, vol. 30). Ernest Babelon, the famous curator of Cabinet des Médailles, found him «astonishing fruitfulness and the energy of a blacksmith». He describes him as one of the four modern artists with «neat and elegant works» admired in the last exhibitions of the late nineteenth century (see Engraving in fine stones. Cameos and intaglios, Paris, Librairies-Imprimies unifies, p. 315; and also the long passage he devotes to his works in his History of engraving on gems in France, Paris, Société de propagation of art books, 1902, pp. 243-245). Works of Tonnelier are in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (inv. 42.99) and in the Metropolitan Museum (Cameo Appearances catalog, p. 50, n ° 109-110).

European private collection.

Estimate: GBP 1200 - 1800