I have been working on a longer post about seals and engraved gems when I noticed a slightly strange intaglio on the bottom of a small gold fob. Normally, intaglios, which are engravings on stones or shells, are someone’s initials or a crest or motto or even just a single symbol like a flower but this one had a collection of things on it. The gold fob is 19th century and is beautifully decorated with gold flowers, some of which are set with turquoise beads. I was expecting a crest of some sort but no.

Ornate 19th century gold fob

What I found is a rebus, which uses pictures, letters and symbols to spell out words or phrases. Early Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese pictographs were forms of rebus, and they were often used in medieval times to spell out a person’s name. In the 19th century, they were used to spell out family mottos or just to have fun.

Rebus intaglio

As far as I can tell, the pictures are of a flight of flies, an hourglass, a barrel, clasped hands, and, I think, a pair of stays (corsets) but could be a harp. I interpret this as time (hourglass) flies (flight of flies) but (barrel) friendship (clasped hands) stays (corset). A bit of fun.