CIRCA 3RD CENTURY A.D.

Details

A ROMAN GOLD NECKLACE
CIRCA 3RD CENTURY A.D.
14 ½ in. (36.8 cm.) long

Provenance

Ludwig Marx, Mainz or Albert Sieck, Munich.
Katalog der Sammlungen Ludwig Marx - Mainz, Albert Sieck - München, Dr. F.X. Weizinger & Co., Munich, 28-31 October 1918, lot 958, pl. 32.
Kunstauktion in Luzern, Galerie Fischer, Luzern, 17 June 1950, lot 804.
Ernst Kofler-Truniger (1903-1990) and Marthe Kofler-Truniger (1918-1999), Luzern, acquired from the above (Inv. no. K 729).
Private Collection, Luzern, acquired from the above circa 1974; thence by continuous descent to the current owner.

Literature

H. and I. Jucker, Kunst und Leben der Etrusker, Zurich, 1955, no. 422.
Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, Zurich, 1964, p. 45, no. 439, pl. 32, no. 429.
J.M. Ogden, Gold Jewellery in Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Egypt (Phd. diss., University of Durham, 1990), vol. 1, p. 192, n. 71.

Exhibited

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Kunst und Leben der Etrusker, January-March 1955.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, 7 June-2 August 1964.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

hsolomon@christies.com +1 212 636 2256

Lot Essay

This necklace is composed of 25 embossed elements featuring addorsed birds, perhaps ducks. They are joined by a loop-in-loop chain affixed to the back. The hook-and-loop closure has triangular terminals each embossed with a cantharus. This type of necklace exists throughout the Roman Empire; some examples were found in Egypt, while others were excavated as far afield as Taxila, in modern-day Pakistan (see Ogden, op. cit., p. 192, fig. 319 for an example in a private collection and fig. 320 for one at Dumbarton Oaks).

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