A PAIR OF GREEK GOLD NIKE EARRINGS

HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 4TH-3RD CENTURY B.C.

Details

A PAIR OF GREEK GOLD NIKE EARRINGS
HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 4TH-3RD CENTURY B.C.
Both figures solid cast and antithetically paired, one with her head inclined to the left, one with her head inclined to the right, each with her hair in a double knot at the top of the head, depicted nude but for a himation fanning out behind, with the folds of the garment held in the one raised and one lowered hand, an additional strip flowing over one shoulder, the outstretched sheet-gold wings with finely chased details for the feathers, a vertical twisted wire in back topped with a ring for attachment to the pan-shaped disk, an eight-petalled rosette at the center of both disks, each petal fringed with beaded wire, the rosette framed by opposing spirals of beaded wire, with a ring of beaded wire on the rim and short hooked earwire in back
Each: 1 11/16 in. (4.3 cm.) long (2)

Provenance

European Private Collection, 1975.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 8 December 1999, lot 29.

Exhibited

Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, 1991-1992.

Lot Essay

The high quality of these earrings is closely paralleled in a pair of Eros earrings said to be from Rhodovani, Crete, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see no. 20 in Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold, Jewellery of the Classical World. For another related pair with Nike see no. 46 in Deppert-Lippitz, The Gift of the Gods, Jewelry from the Ancient World.

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