LATE ARCHAIC PERIOD, CIRCA EARLY 5TH CENTURY B.C.

The underside is engraved with a nude man bending forward to pet a dog. The man stands with his weight on his left leg, the right bent with his toes resting on the hatched border. He stoops forward, touching the dog with his lowered hand, his right arm bent acutely with his hand resting atop a staff.

The subject of a man and dog was popular on gems beginning in the Archaic Period (see for example nos. 285 and 286 in J. Boardman, Archaic Greek Gems). For a similar example, see the chalcedony scaraboid in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Boardman, op. cit., no. 317). The subject was also popular on contemporary and later Greek marble grave stelai (see for example the stele from Thespiai, no. 329 in N. Kaltsas, Sculpture in the National Archeological Museum, Athens).