Fine bulls mouth shell cameo carving of the Gorgon Medusa by Giovanni Dies c.1835.
Set to a simple high carat gold frame.
1.75 by 1.5 inches. Original steel pin. Etched signature to reverse.
Dies (1796-1839) was one of the most successful carvers in Rome selling to the Grand Tourists,with an annual turnover of £5000 in the early c19th. Works are included in the British Museum. His  contemparary the celebrated Tommaso Saulini carved the same Medusa in hardstone which is included in the Hull Grundy gift (British Museum).
 
While Ancient relief carvers imagined Medusa as a monstrous female, sculptors  of the fifth century began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".
The  Roman poet Ovid also wrote that Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Poseidon had sex with her in Athena's temple,she  punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into snakes.
Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.