EIGHTEEN CARAT GOLD AND MICRO-MOSAIC 'ARCHAEOLOGICAL' DEMI-PARURE, C. & E. TOMBINI, ROME, CIRCA 1870
the stylized bulla pendant/brooch decorated with granulation, applied wire and rope twist borders, set to the centre with a micro-mosaic depicting the head of a pharaoh within a laurel border suspending a pendant depicting a scarab and chain swags, with two pairs of matching earrings, one pair mirroring the pharaoh head design, the other the scarab, Papal States gold marks, indecipherable maker's mark, in original red leather case with applied label Roma, Babuino 133 134, C. ed E. Tombini, Orefici, Londra, 22 Wigmore St
Tombini were known for their jewellery in the 'archaeological style'; pieces by the firm could be purchased at the shop in Rome, as well as through their retailer in London's Wigmore Street. Such revivalist style jewellery was popularised by Napoleon III's wife, who wore items from the Campana collection, which included many pieces of ancient jewellery. The most influential jeweller at this time was Fortunato Pio Castellani and his sons Alessandro and Augusto, who endeavoured to re-create historically precise models of recently excavated finds. They displayed their work at International Exhibitions and had shops in London and Paris. The style gained momentum with Carlo Giuliano & John Brogden in London, Henri Vever & Eugene Fonteney in Paris and Josef Bacher & Sohn in Vienna.
No traveller's trip to Rome would be complete without a visit to a jeweller working in this new 'Classical' style. George Eliot and George Henry Lewes, when visiting the city, chose Tombini to mount a cameo of a Bacchante they had acquired. In his diary for 18 April 1860 Lewes wrote: "The Bacchante we took to a goldsmith and there chose an Etruscan mounting" (see Yale University Library GEN MSS 818 for the cameo in its Tombini gold mount). A Handbook of Rome and its Environs (John Murray, London, 1871) notes that Cesare Tombini was 'a good working jeweller at 65, via Babuino who can be relied upon for setting cameos, mosaics, etc'.
There was an increasing interest in the Egyptian style through the 1860s, helped by Auguste Mariette's excavations for the Louvre and the digging of the Suez Canal. Verdi's Aida (1871) was based on a plot by Mariette, following the Khedive's request for an opera story. This demi-parure, with its strong pharaonic motifs, reflects the time's passion for objects in the Egyptian taste, displaying a freer adaptation of the 'archaeological style' than early Castellani examples; for a similar Tombini pendant in similar case see Diana Scarisbrick's chapter in Castellani an Italian Archaeological Jeweller, p.328, fig.12-25 (edited Susan Weber Soros & Stephanie Walker, New York, 2004).