HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

The oval stone has a concave face and a convex back, and is engraved with Hermes receiving right infant Dionysos from Zeus, with a groundline below. The chief Olympian is depicted nude, holding a knobbed scepter in his right hand, with his left arm resting on his head. He is seated on his mantle with the drapery arching above and falling over his lowered right arm. Hermes stands facing Zeus, holding the infant Dionysos out in front. He wears a chlamys diagonally over his right shoulder and around his waist, exposing his upper torso. A wing springs from his left ankle.

On gems, the depiction of Zeus together with Hermes and the infant Dionysos may be unique to the example presented here. There are a few examples of just Hermes with the infant Dionysos, including on a contemporary Hellenistic garnet in Munich, no. 401 in E. Brandt, Antike Gemmen in Deutschen Sammlungen, Band I, Staatliche Münzsammlung, München, with a reference to two other examples. The child leaps from the thigh of Zeus into the arms of Hermes on a Neo-Attic relief in the Vatican, no. 668 in C. Gasparri, “Dionysos,” LIMC, vol. III, and the theme of Hermes holding the infant is well known from the marble group from Olympia attributed to Praxiteles (no. 675 in Gasparri, op. cit.).