3 Roman Intaglios - Garnet Dolphin, Carnelian Pan & Glass Nike

Roman, Imperial period. A trio of miniature engraved gems, each cut in intaglio for setting into a finger ring and pressing into wax. The first, in red glass, carries a winged Nike striding right with a victory wreath raised before her. The second, in carnelian, presents the bearded head of Pan in profile to the left, the goat horns curling back from his brow. The third, a garnet, is engraved with a dolphin, the sea creature sacred to Neptune and a common emblem of safe passage and good fortune. All three are worked in the intimate scale of Roman glyptic art, where an engraver's drill and wheel reduced whole deities to a few millimeters of polished stone. Such gems served at once as personal signets, protective amulets, and quiet declarations of taste. Nike, the Greek goddess of victory whom the Romans knew as Victoria, appears on gems more often than almost any other figure, usually winged and bearing a wreath or palm. She was cheap grace for the wearer: a promise of success in law, love, war, or commerce, depending on who was doing the hoping. Pan belongs to a different register. Horned, bearded, and goat-legged, he governed flocks, wild places, and the sudden irrational terror that still carries his name. Gems bearing his head trade on that ambivalence, invoking rustic abundance while keeping a hand on something older and less domesticated. Roman engravers cut such gems with a rotating drill fed by abrasive powder, working the design in reverse so that the sealing impression would read correctly. Red glass, molded or engraved in imitation of carnelian, circulated widely as an affordable alternative to hardstone and appears throughout the Imperial period. Item # 204642

Estimation:€401.39

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