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Lot Essay
PUBLISHED:
M. H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems, privately printed, 1870, p. 104, no. 627 ("Bessb. Cat. No. 9 M").
For the earlier collections, cf. Catalogo del prezioso museo di pietre intagliate e cammei appresso le signore de Medina in Livorno, 1742; and L. Natter, Catalogue des pierre gravées, tant en relief qu'en creux, de Mylord Comte de Bessborough, London, 1761.
The figure on the above intaglio may either represent the Old Man character of New Comedy, standing with his crook, or the Procurer (leno or pornoboskos), who sells courtesans to the highest bidder and, as a result, with whom the young men and their slaves are always fighting. The Procurer appeared in Menander's Kolax and is usually depicted bald with a long beard. For similar examples of the comic actor type, cf. Furtwängler, Antiken Gemmen, pl. XLI, no. 48; Beazley, Lewes House, p. 91, pl. 7, no. 108; Boardman, Ionides, p. 96, no. 37 which shows an actor beside a pillar; Richter, Gems of the Romans, p. 75, no. 361; and Henig et al., Classical Gems, p. 113, no. 210.
M. H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems, privately printed, 1870, p. 104, no. 627 ("Bessb. Cat. No. 9 M").
For the earlier collections, cf. Catalogo del prezioso museo di pietre intagliate e cammei appresso le signore de Medina in Livorno, 1742; and L. Natter, Catalogue des pierre gravées, tant en relief qu'en creux, de Mylord Comte de Bessborough, London, 1761.
The figure on the above intaglio may either represent the Old Man character of New Comedy, standing with his crook, or the Procurer (leno or pornoboskos), who sells courtesans to the highest bidder and, as a result, with whom the young men and their slaves are always fighting. The Procurer appeared in Menander's Kolax and is usually depicted bald with a long beard. For similar examples of the comic actor type, cf. Furtwängler, Antiken Gemmen, pl. XLI, no. 48; Beazley, Lewes House, p. 91, pl. 7, no. 108; Boardman, Ionides, p. 96, no. 37 which shows an actor beside a pillar; Richter, Gems of the Romans, p. 75, no. 361; and Henig et al., Classical Gems, p. 113, no. 210.