Cameo Ring with Marie Antoinette and her Son, the Dauphin

Description Jacques Guay carved cameo portraits of Queen Marie Antoinette, though it is not known whether he is the author of this one. The carver took advantage of the natural striations of color in the stone to differentiate between the two figures: the queen and her son, the dauphin (1785–95), who would have become Louis XVII, but for the French Revolution. Such a ring might have been worn by a courtier or, after the Revolution, by a royalist sympathizer. The cameo is surrounded by a border of diamond sparks in silver mounts. The forked shoulders each enclose a tulip originally set with a crystal.

Conservation

Examined in preparation for exhibition

Cleaned to reduce tarnish in preparation for exhibition.

Date	Description	Narrative
2/08/1962	Treatment	cleaned
6/20/1983	Loan Consideration	examined for loan
7/10/1984	Treatment	cleaned
3/25/1988	Treatment	cleaned
3/25/1988	Examination	examined for condition
7/22/2004	Treatment	cleaned
8/05/2015	Examination	Examined
8/15/2015	Treatment	Cleaned

Exhibitions

• Jewelry - Ancient to Modern. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1979-1980.
• Objects of Adornment: Five Thousand Years of Jewelry from the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. 1984-1987.
• Jewelry from the Walters Art Gallery and the Zucker Family Collection. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1987.
• Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry from the Walters Art Museum. Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2006-2009.
• Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry. El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso. 2010.
• Madame de Pompadour, Patron and Printmaker. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2016.

Provenance Henry Walters, Baltimore (?); given to Laura F. Delano, New York; given to Walters Art Museum, 1947.

Credit Gift of Laura F. Delano, 1947