L.S. Peterson 12K Gold Filled Highly Detailed Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shell Cameo Brooch/Pendant

L.S. Peterson 12K Gold Filled Highly Detailed Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shell Cameo Brooch/Pendant featuring an intricately carved carnelian shell with an off-white outer shell against a warm peach toned inner shell. This beautiful cameo depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus, each with golden crowns within a single halo of stars, and with Jesus holding the scapular. There is the inscription 'AVE MARIA' at the Blessed Virgin Mary's feet and there are two figures with halos knelt at each side. This beautiful one of a kind cameo is 12K gold filled and marked on the inside of the rim on the back 'L.S.P. 1/2012' and the frame is twisted rope style detail. It has a rollover clasp and it has a pendant bale on the reverse, which folds away, so it can be worn as a necklace or as a brooch. It measures 4.2cm tall and 3.2 cm at its widest point and it weighs 7.8g.

This fabulous one-off piece is the artist handiwork of L.S. Peterson Co., a jewellery designer from Massachusetts.from the 1940's or 1950's. The company, known for its LSP Co. mark was established in 1943 in Attleboro, MA, before relocating to Seekonk, MA. The company was sold in 1994.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or Virgin of Carmel, is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order, particularly within the Catholic Church. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century.

In the year 1251, in the town of Aylesford, England, Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite. She handed him a brown woollen scapular and said, “This shall be a privilege for you and all Carmelites, that anyone dying in this habit shall not suffer eternal fire.” In time, the Church extended this magnificent privilege to all who are willing to be invested in the Brown Scapular of the Carmelites and who perpetually wear it. For some time the order maintained that for those that wore the scapular if they should pass from this world still owing some debt of punishment Our Lady of Mount Carmel would save them from Purgatory on the first Saturday of their stay.