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Lot Essay
This remarkable depiction of the Escape from Troy is the finest known on a gem. Aeneas, wearing a corselet, carries his father Anchises and leads his son Ascanius out of the gates of Troy. Anchises, enveloped in robes, holds a cylindrical reliquary with raised moldings top and bottom and an X on the side. Ascanius wears a short chiton, a cloak and a Phrygian cap and carries a pedum. The ashlar blocks of the gate are indicated, topped with battlements, upon which stands a Greek warrior in a crested helmet, holding a torch aloft in one hand, a spear in the other. In addition to the flames of the torch, the nighttime setting is confirmed by a star in the sky. Aeneas is stepping onto a ladder at the stern of a ship. On board are three Trojans, each wearing a Phrygian cap. One attends the rudder, another holds a horn to his lips, either a trumpet or a rhyton, and one handles the rigging of the still furled sail. That the faces of the main characters are shown frontally on this gem adds to the three-dimensional feel of the scene.
The depiction of Aeneas carrying his father was already popular with Athenian vase-painters by the late 6th century B.C. and must be based on the lost Greek epic, The Illiupersis, also known as The Sack of Troy. As Boardman informs (p. 231 in Athenian Black Figure Vases), many of the vases may have been intended for trade to Italy, where the myth had a special relevance. The subject gained in popularity in Rome in the 1st century B.C. on account of Virgil, whose Aeneid told the story from the Trojan point of view. Following Aeneas' escape from Troy, he made his way to Italy where his descendents Romulus and Remus eventually founded the city of Rome.
In Book II of the Aeneid, the hero's mother, the goddess Venus, restrains Aeneas from killing Helen, whom he discovered hiding amidst the devastation, and implores him instead to find his family, "make your escape and flee" (see p. 113 in S. Woodford, The Trojan War in Ancient Art). Later, the hero explains, "No help, Or hope of help existed, So I resigned myself, picked up my father, And turned my face toward the mountain range" (lines 1043–1047). The motif was popular on Roman gems and coins, and in other media as well, but never as detailed as on the present example except on larger scale works of art (see F. Canciani, op. cit., nos. 93-145).
The depiction of Aeneas carrying his father was already popular with Athenian vase-painters by the late 6th century B.C. and must be based on the lost Greek epic, The Illiupersis, also known as The Sack of Troy. As Boardman informs (p. 231 in Athenian Black Figure Vases), many of the vases may have been intended for trade to Italy, where the myth had a special relevance. The subject gained in popularity in Rome in the 1st century B.C. on account of Virgil, whose Aeneid told the story from the Trojan point of view. Following Aeneas' escape from Troy, he made his way to Italy where his descendents Romulus and Remus eventually founded the city of Rome.
In Book II of the Aeneid, the hero's mother, the goddess Venus, restrains Aeneas from killing Helen, whom he discovered hiding amidst the devastation, and implores him instead to find his family, "make your escape and flee" (see p. 113 in S. Woodford, The Trojan War in Ancient Art). Later, the hero explains, "No help, Or hope of help existed, So I resigned myself, picked up my father, And turned my face toward the mountain range" (lines 1043–1047). The motif was popular on Roman gems and coins, and in other media as well, but never as detailed as on the present example except on larger scale works of art (see F. Canciani, op. cit., nos. 93-145).