Lot 316
316
A ROMAN GOLD SNAKE-HEADED NECKLACE, the tightly linked loop-in-loop chain with snake head terminals, naturalistically modelled, with a hook and eye clasp and a pendant with hexagonal emerald crystal bead in a gold setting with gold wire volutes above, representing a stylized amphora, chain with ancient repair, circa 3rd Century A.D.

Details
A ROMAN GOLD SNAKE-HEADED NECKLACE, the tightly linked loop-in-loop chain with snake head terminals, naturalistically modelled, with a hook and eye clasp and a pendant with hexagonal emerald crystal bead in a gold setting with gold wire volutes above, representing a stylized amphora, chain with ancient repair, circa 3rd Century A.D.
13 7/8in. (35.2cm.) long

Lot Essay

For a particularly fine example of late Roman snake head terminals, cf. Christie's London, 10 July 1987, lot 149 for a gold medallion of Gordian III on a snaked-headed chain, also in In Pursuit of the Absolute: Art of the Ancient World from the George Ortiz Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1994. The amphora pendant, first seen in Hellenistic jewellery, remained popular in late Roman necklets

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