COURT STYLE, CIRCA LATE 5TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

A GRECO-PERSIAN GRAY CHALCEDONY SCARABOID WITH A BEARDED MALE GOAT-SPHINX
COURT STYLE, CIRCA LATE 5TH CENTURY B.C.
1 in. (2.5 cm.) long

Provenance

Private Collection, Newton, MA, brought from Iran to the U.S., 1983.
Private Collection, Boston.
Property of a New England Collector; Antiquities, Christie's, New York, 18 December 1998, lot 209.

Literature

H.C.L. Wiegandt, Die griechischen Siegel der klassischen Zeit: ikonographischer Vergleich, Frankfurt am Main, 2009, p. 192, no. FbadP2, pl. CXXXIX.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Brought to you by

Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

hsolomon@christies.com +1 212 636 2256

Lot Essay

Within the Greco-Persian repertoire, there is a wide variety of human-headed monsters, almost always winged, including bull-men, who typically wear royal crowns, and sphinxes, both male and female. Bearded male sphinxes usually have leonine bodies but occasionally also sport goat horns and legs. The example presented here is a hybrid, with a fully leonine body but with the addition of goat horns. For a nearly identical example see no. GP-32 in Bernheimer, Ancient Gems from the Borowski Collection.

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