Object Type
Cameo glass is extremely labour-intensive and therefore expensive to buy. This plaque was made for the collectors' market and its complexity means that it was aimed at the very richest of clientele. It was intended solely for display and its owner was expected to provide very special presentation, with lighting precise enough to bring out the subtleties of Cleopatra's diaphaneous drapery carved with formidable skill by the Woodall brothers.

Subjects Depicted
Classical subjects represented the highest possible taste. They suggested familiarity with Greek and Latin and an aristocratic, expensive education. Genuinely ancient artefacts, such as those excavated on sites in Rome at the beginning of the 19th century, were collected by artists, writers and academics. By the 1890s, the newly-rich could purchase their way into this exclusive intellectual fraternity by buying new objects decorated with ancient motifs. In addition, cameo-glass carving was an ancient technique which, in itself, suggested exclusivity and taste on the part of the owner.

Materials & Making
The earliest and most famous example of cameo-glass carving is the ancient Roman Portland Vase, in the British Museum. It was made by blowing a vase-shape of one colour inside another, allowing these to cool and then carving through both layers to form a three-dimensional picture. Achieving this without having the two colours separate as they cool, and then carving successfully without shattering the piece (for instance, by cutting through an unforeseen bubble) was immensely difficult. The technique was rediscovered and developed in the late 19th century by John Northwood.