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Lot Essay
The back of the scaraboid is overlaid with a heavy gold cap, rimmed with a plain wire and a row of granulation. The underside is engraved with a youthful nude warrior seated on a rock. One leg is lowered while the other is bent at the knee. In his lowered hand he holds a short sword, while in the other, he hold the end of its scabbard. A chlamys drapes over his proper right arm and shoulder, and extends behind and below, fanning out to the right. The scene is enclosed within a thin hatched border.
The details of the warrior’s face has much in common with that of a boxer on a banded agate sliced barrel and that of a seated harp player on a burnt sard sliced barrel, both in the British Museum (see J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, pls. 516 and 517). Both gems are closely associated with the work of the engraver Dexamenos of Chios, whose signature is found on four gems (a profile male head, a domestic scene, a heron, and another heron with a grasshopper, Boardman, op. cit., pls. 466-469). The finesse and delicate details of his work on the signed gems, likely the result of an advancement in lapidary technology – namely, the use of a diamond-point drill – allowed for a level of naturalism not previously possible. On the present gem, the contours of the rock upon which the warrior sits are extraordinary, despite the shallowness of the engraving, which, taken together with the detailed folds of the chlamys and the individual strands of hair of the warrior, all point to the virtuosity of the engraver, either Dexamenos himself or a close follower.
The pose recalls that of Diomedes seated on an altar, holding the Palladion, as employed by later gem engravers, either as a single figure or together with Odysseys, as seen on the Felix Gem in Oxford (see no. 24g in A. MacGregor and M. Henig, Catalogue of the Engraved Gems and Finger-rings in the Ashmolean Museum, vol. II.).
The details of the warrior’s face has much in common with that of a boxer on a banded agate sliced barrel and that of a seated harp player on a burnt sard sliced barrel, both in the British Museum (see J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, pls. 516 and 517). Both gems are closely associated with the work of the engraver Dexamenos of Chios, whose signature is found on four gems (a profile male head, a domestic scene, a heron, and another heron with a grasshopper, Boardman, op. cit., pls. 466-469). The finesse and delicate details of his work on the signed gems, likely the result of an advancement in lapidary technology – namely, the use of a diamond-point drill – allowed for a level of naturalism not previously possible. On the present gem, the contours of the rock upon which the warrior sits are extraordinary, despite the shallowness of the engraving, which, taken together with the detailed folds of the chlamys and the individual strands of hair of the warrior, all point to the virtuosity of the engraver, either Dexamenos himself or a close follower.
The pose recalls that of Diomedes seated on an altar, holding the Palladion, as employed by later gem engravers, either as a single figure or together with Odysseys, as seen on the Felix Gem in Oxford (see no. 24g in A. MacGregor and M. Henig, Catalogue of the Engraved Gems and Finger-rings in the Ashmolean Museum, vol. II.).