Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Old Carved Gems

The Gonzaga Cameo - Arsinoe II & Ptolemy II
Egypt
3rd century BC
sardonyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Busts of Three Men
Eastern Mediterranean
4th century AD
carnelian
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Diomedes stealing the Palladium
Roman Empire
1st century BC - 1st century AD
onyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Miraculous guardian statues were common in ancient cities, but none was more famous than the Trojan Palladium, a small wooden image of armed Athena. It fell from the sky, and the safety of Troy depended on its possession. Odysseus and Diomedes carried it away, thus enabling the sack of Troy. But in the canonical Roman tradition it was Aeneas who rescued the Palladium and brought it to Lavinium, whence it ultimately reached Rome. Ovid adduces both legends, but others tried to reconcile them: the image robbed by the Greeks was only a copy, or: Diomedes came to Italy and returned the Palladium to Aeneas. Also, other cities claimed the Trojan Palladium: Athens, Argos, Sparta, and in Italy Heraclea, Luceria, Siris, and Lavinium. In Rome it was kept as a pledge of Rome's fate in the innermost part of Vesta's temple, where only the chief vestal could enter; when in 241 BC the temple burnt, the pontifex maximus L. Caecilius Metellus saved the Palladium, but (so some authorities) lost his sight. It was still there in AD 191." 

Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition (1996) edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth

Intaglio - Diomedes stealing the Palladium
Italy
ca. 1700-1730
rock crystal
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Leda and the Swan
Italy
ca. 1825
onyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
 
Cameo - Venus and the Eagle
Egypt
1st century BC
sardonyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Portrait of Couple
Italy
ca. 1580-1620
onyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Mask of Satyr
Italy
ca. 1580-1620
onyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Fish and Shrimp
Roman Empire
1st century AD
sardonyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Nero as Helios
Roman Empire
1st century AD
rock crystal
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - The Nymph Galene
Greece
3rd century BC
aquamarine
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - the Nymph Hippa with rhyton
Italy
ca. 1600-1650
sardonyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Two Swans
Europe
undated
agate
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Cameo - Diana and Actaeon
Italy
ca. 1550-1600
agate
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg