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Lot Essay
The flat oval stone, bluish-white over brown, is either the natural banding of the stone or the result of heat treatment in antiquity. It is engraved with a sphinx walking to the left with a forepaw raised. Her tail is wrapped around her rear left leg, her outstretched feathery wing is well detailed and her hair is arranged in a chignon.
The sphinx was one of the most popular glyptic subjects for the Greeks and Romans, usually depicted either seated, reclining, or walking/running, as here. Several ancient authors, including Pliny the Elder and Dio, record that the seal ring of Augustus was engraved with a sphinx, and that his confidants Agrippa and Marcellus each had a duplicate (see p. 183 in C.J. Simpson, “Rome’s Official Imperial Seal? The Rings of Augustus and His First Century Successors,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, vol. 54, Heft 2). Augustus had inherited his ring from his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. He later replaced it with one depicting Alexander the Great, which he inherited from his mother, and after that, one with his own portrait commissioned from the engraver Dioscurides. Augustus also employed the device of a seated sphinx (therefore, the likely the pose of the sphinx on his seal ring) on some of his coins minted circa 20 B.C. (see the silver cistophorus, no. 129 in J.P.C. Kent, Roman Coins). The style of the sphinx’s head and feathery wing is nearly identical to that of the sphinx on the gem presented here.
The sphinx was one of the most popular glyptic subjects for the Greeks and Romans, usually depicted either seated, reclining, or walking/running, as here. Several ancient authors, including Pliny the Elder and Dio, record that the seal ring of Augustus was engraved with a sphinx, and that his confidants Agrippa and Marcellus each had a duplicate (see p. 183 in C.J. Simpson, “Rome’s Official Imperial Seal? The Rings of Augustus and His First Century Successors,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, vol. 54, Heft 2). Augustus had inherited his ring from his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. He later replaced it with one depicting Alexander the Great, which he inherited from his mother, and after that, one with his own portrait commissioned from the engraver Dioscurides. Augustus also employed the device of a seated sphinx (therefore, the likely the pose of the sphinx on his seal ring) on some of his coins minted circa 20 B.C. (see the silver cistophorus, no. 129 in J.P.C. Kent, Roman Coins). The style of the sphinx’s head and feathery wing is nearly identical to that of the sphinx on the gem presented here.