A GREEK PARCEL GILT SILVER EMBLEMA

HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

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A GREEK PARCEL GILT SILVER EMBLEMA
HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.
Hammered from a single sheet and worked in repoussé from the back, the details chased from the front, with the sea-monster Scylla, her nude human torso depicted frontally with her head turned to the left, her arms raised and bent acutely, wielding a ship's oar over her shoulders, her lower body formed of two serpentine fish tails, both coiled with the tails upraised, with three dog protomes springing from her hips, the merge of her human torso and fish tails concealed by a skirt of acanthus leaves, with a sailor caught in one of the coils, his body slumping forward, another being ravaged by two of the dogs, the background with a wave pattern on the lower third, the upper portion stippled, enclosed by a flat ring with two grooves along its length, secured by eight evenly-spaced rivets, once attached to the tondo of a bowl
6 11/16 in. (16.9 cm.) diameter; 170.9 gr.

來源

Private Collection, London, acquired prior to 1962.

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拍品專文

Scylla is a terrifying sea-monster with six heads, each with a triple row of teeth, and twelve feet. She lives in a cave opposite the whirlpool Charybdis, thought to be at the straights of Messina. In Book XII of Homer's Odyssey, Circe warns Odysseus that Scylla will take six of his men as their ship passes her lair. Hellenistic depictions of her differ from Homer's description, when she has a single head, dogs at her waist, and fish tails instead of legs, as here. Later authors inform that she had once been of human form, but a jealous Circe uses her magic to turn her into a monster. For another gilt silver emblema of Scylla see no. 32 in Jentel, "Skylla I," in LIMC.

HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

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