A ROMAN CHROME CHALCEDONY ENTHRONED MALE

CIRCA LATE 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

细节

A ROMAN CHROME CHALCEDONY ENTHRONED MALE
CIRCA LATE 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.
Depicting either the god Mars or an emperor, seated with both legs drawn back, armed in a metal cuirass over a leather garment and tunic, with two tiers of straps protecting his shoulders and long straps at his hips, the shoulder straps with tasseled ends, the cuirass with naturalistically-modelled musculature and patterned shoulder straps, secured with a cingulum below the breasts, the ends curving out below, the collar with a band of ovolo, wearing a paludamentum over his legs, behind his back and over the left shoulder, his right arm originally lowered with the now-missing hand perhaps positioned on his thigh, his left arm extended out and likely bent up to hold a spear or a scepter, its shaft, circular in section, preserved behind the projecting molding of the left front throne leg, the throne with a tall rectangular back, its details carefully rendered, including recessed panels framed by moldings and patterned with circular recessions
4 1/8 in. (10.4 cm.) high

来源

Private Collection, Switzerland.
with Phoenix Ancient Art, Geneva, 1990.
Private Collection, Switzerland, 2007.

出版

J.M. Padgett, "A Chalcedony Statuette of Herakles," in Record of the Art Museum Princeton University, vol. 54, no. 1, 1995, pp. 7-9, fig. 7.
E. Gagetti, Preziose Sculture di et Ellenistica e Romana, Milan, 2006, p. 225, fig. A45 and A46.

G. Platz-Horster, "Kleine Praser and Chromium-bearing Chalcedonies: About a small group of engraved gems," in PALLAS, vol. 83, 2010, pp. 179-202.

展览

Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Art Museum, 1996-2006.

拍场告示

Please note that additional publication information has been added to this lot.

E. Gagetti, Preziose Sculture di et Ellenistica e Romana, Milan, 2006, p. 225, fig. A45 and A46.

G. Platz-Horster, "Kleine Praser and Chromium-bearing Chalcedonies: About a small group of engraved gems," in PALLAS, vol. 83, 2010, pp. 179-202.

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拍品专文

Gemstones, normally engraved as seals or cameos, were occasionally fashioned into miniature sculptures worthy of comparison with the finest large-scale works of marble or bronze. These jewel-like statuettes were made from micro-crystalline quartz, such as blue to gray chalcedony, rock crystal, and, as here, chrome chalcedony, which is mottled green in color sometimes streaked with red. Only very few such statuettes have survived from antiquity (Padgett lists 26 in all); many are Imperial portraits or figures of deities (see Padgett, op. cit., p. 3).
Padgett (op. cit., p. 9) informs that seated figures in armor are rare in Roman art. A fully-armed Mars is shown on a 2nd century A.D. coin from Alexandria (see no. 22 in Bruneau, "Ares" in LIMC), seated with a scepter in one hand, a winged Victoria in the other. The length of the shaft of the present figure suggests that the attribute held in the left hand was a spear rather than a scepter, which is equally plausible for depictions of Mars or an emperor, perhaps in the likeness of the god.