Genuine hand carved shell cameo pendent set in solid gold 18 ct.

Shell: Cassis Madagascariensis

Cameo Size: 21 mm

"Mercury" Cameo Pendant is designed and created by Bimonte sorrento

Our Creations are furnished with certificate of authenticity

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Copy of the "Flying Mercury",Gian Bologna ( 1529-1608), Florence.

 Mercury is a major Roman god, being one of the Dii  onsentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the patron god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence (and thus poetry), messages/communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he is also the guide of souls to the underworld. He was considered the son of Maia and Jupiter in Roman Mythology.

This is The most celebrated sculpture by Giambologna , known in four versions whose chronology is uncertain. His first design, a heavy wingless figure, is preserved in a model in Bologna. When Giambologna returned to Florence, he referred to his earlier work in a second version, a flying Mercury, now lost or identical to one in Vienna. This bronze was send by Cosimo as a diplomatic gift to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian II, when they were negotiating the marriage of Maximilian's sister Giovanna to Francesco de' Medici. The messenger god was Maximilian's protector and the pose was based on a medal of Maximilian by Leone Leoni (1551).

The fourth, a flying variant in Florence was completed by 1580, when it became a fountain figure at the Villa Medici, Rome. Mercury balances on a bronze column of air issuing from the mouth of Zephyr, over which flowed water, increasing the illusion that he was floating. The work shows a study of Verrocchio's Putto and Dolphin and Rusitici's Mercury, both for the Medici and is indebted to the Mercury on the base of Cellini's Perseus but has more dynamism.

This hand carved shell cameo pendent is designed and created by Bimonte Sorrento