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Lot Essay
The agate used for the beetle is half gray chalcedony and half carnelian. The beetle is very simply carved with no markings on the back. On the underside, a youth kneels on one knee and tests an arrow, holding its tip in one hand and the tail end in the other. The scene is enclosed within a hatched border.
The characteristics of the Dry Style, to which this scarab is attributed, are “angular bodies, some still with the broad thighs of mid-century figures, the chest and stomach muscles shown as a simple row of striations” (see J. Boardman, op. cit., p. 78). Regarding the subject of a youth testing an arrow, Boardman informs (op. cit., p. 79), here “we meet for the first time a motif which becomes popular on later Archaic gems. It appears on coins of Kyzikos and Cilicia and for a while on Athenian vases in the last quarter of the 6th century.”
The characteristics of the Dry Style, to which this scarab is attributed, are “angular bodies, some still with the broad thighs of mid-century figures, the chest and stomach muscles shown as a simple row of striations” (see J. Boardman, op. cit., p. 78). Regarding the subject of a youth testing an arrow, Boardman informs (op. cit., p. 79), here “we meet for the first time a motif which becomes popular on later Archaic gems. It appears on coins of Kyzikos and Cilicia and for a while on Athenian vases in the last quarter of the 6th century.”