CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Details

EIGHT ROMAN GLASS INTAGLIOS
CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.
28 mm. wide max.

Provenance

G. Sangiorgi collection (1886-1965), Rome.
Private collection, Monaco, 1970s; thence by descent.

Special notice

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Sale room notice

Please note that the quantity of this lot should read 8.

Brought to you by

Beatrice Campi

bcampi@christies.com +44 (0)20 3219 6159

Lot Essay

The intaglio with Mars wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and spear, in combat with a giant with snake legs, has an exergue filled with hatched triangles. This might be an archaistic detail coming from Etruscan intaglios of the 5th Century B.C.. The same detail appears on a famous gem attributed to Solon and dateable to the 1st Century B.C., see M.-L. Vollenweider, Die Steinschneidekunst und ihre Künstler in spätrepublikanischer und augusteischer Zeit, Baden-Baden, 1966, 21 note 32; 88 pl. 11, 2. For a glass paste intaglio of Mars and giant in the British Museum see inventory no. 1923,0401.61, dated to the 3rd

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