Article in the Brecon and Radnor newspaper

Talgarth jewellery designer's very royal commission

Express Report by Jess Childs - May 31, 2007

A Talgarth jewellery designer has just returned from America after being commissioned to create a cameo which was presented to Her Majesty the Queen as part of her recent USA visit.

Gareth Eckley, 43, worked 12 hour days for around three weeks to complete the brooch-like cameo depicting indian princess Pocahontas in time for the Queen's visit to Richmond, Virginia on May 3rd, when a native indian tribe presented it to her on the steps of the Capitol building before her speech to members of the American Government.

Former Gwernyfed High School student Gareth has been a jewellery designer since he left college, and returned to run his company Portraits in Stone from Talgarth around 4 years ago after living in Canada for the previous 12.

His portrait cameos, which can take the form of a pendant or brooch, cost from £ 2,000 upwards.

He said: " Usually to create a cameo like this would take twice as long as this one did. However this was such a high profile order and my time was so short."

Gareth creates an image on the cameo by delicately carving into layers of coloured semi-precious stone agate and, using the contrast in colours, creates the desired shading for whatever is depicted.

For the Queen he was asked to reproduce the face of Pocahontas to emulate a cameo which was carved by a London jeweller from a piece of blue onyx for the princess herself in the early 17th Century, after she had moved to Britain.

It later made its way back to Virginia, and was eventually donated to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation in the 1950's by the Reverend Cary Weisenger III, a direct descendant of Pocahontas.

Gareth added: "In Elizabethan times they had quite a Roman or Greek kind of style and the image had been made to look quite cherubic, so rather than make a straight reproduction I actually altered tha cameo to have a much stronger nose, and a more indian shape."

The Queen was presented with the cameo, which was finished with rare fresh-water pearls fished from the Tennessee, at 3pm after the tribe had blessed it in a ceremony at 1pm.

Her Majesty then visited Jamestown, also in Virginia, along with Prince Phillip and her host Vice President Dick Cheney the folowing day, May 4th to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the town's founding in a ceremony at a re-created colonial fort.

The town holds its significance as the first area of major western settlement in May 1607, and as the place where Pocahontas acted as mediator between her native father, chief of the Powhatan tribe, and settling British captain John Smith, effectively saving the captain's life.

Pocahontas later married English tobacco planter John Rolfe and moved to Britain before passing away from pneumonia at the age of 22, and is buried in Gravesend, Kent.

Gareth and his wife Sheila and their two sons combined the trip with a family holiday, and also managed to meet some of Gareth's stateside clients in person, a process which he says was very rewarding.

He added: " Often these portraits can be very personal, of a pet, a grandparent, spouse or most often a child. So one thing I focus on is personalising the gift. There is such a strong emotional attachment to this type of work."

Asked about the Queen's gift Gareth added with a smile :

" I did hear that she likes it."