A FINE HELLENISTIC GOLD DOUBLE LION-HEADED EARRING

CIRCA 320-300 B.C., MAGNA GRAECIA

Details

A FINE HELLENISTIC GOLD DOUBLE LION-HEADED EARRING
CIRCA 320-300 B.C., MAGNA GRAECIA
The spirally twisted gold wire tapering hoop terminating in two filigree tongued collars, a hollow lion's head emerging from each, the larger naturalistically modelled with knotted brow, curving whiskers and unusually coiled sheet gold ears, the luxuriant mane with thickly scrolling curls with beaded collar and filigree frieze of ivy-leaves and granulated berries above its tongued collar, the opposite terminal with similar smaller lion's head
1 in. (2.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Bense collection: sold Sotheby's, London, 14 December 1995, lot 228.

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
H. A. Cahn (ed.), Art of Ancient Italy: Etruscans, Greeks and Romans, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1970, p. 42, no. 64.

Cf. D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold, The British Museum, London, 1994, pp. 215-216, nos. 148-149 for a similar earring and necklace terminals.

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