A EASTERN ROMAN GOLD AND GARNET INLAID OWL AMULET, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

AN EASTERN ROMAN GOLD AND GARNET-INLAID OWL AMULET, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D. Worked in sheet gold and modelled in the round as an owl seated upright, the body of compact ovoid form tapering to a short tail and resting on a flat base. The head is large in proportion to the body, with prominent circular facial discs framing the eyes, each disc chased with radiating petal-like rays in the manner of a rosette. The eyes are set with cabochon garnets of deep red tone, held within raised collars at the centre of each disc. A short triangular beak projects between them, ridged along its centre. Two small tufts rise from the crown to indicate ear-feathers. The breast is left plain and softly modelled, while the folded wings are defined in low repoussé with overlapping scale-like coverts above and long parallel flight feathers sweeping toward the tail. The reverse, not visible, would have been worked from a separate sheet and joined along the contour. The owl is rendered with the conventions of Graeco-Roman small-scale goldwork: the body raised from thin sheet over a former, the surface detail chased and punched from the front, and the stone settings applied as discrete bezels. The frontal, almost heraldic posture, with the great disc-eyes dominating the face, follows a long-established iconographic type for the owl in Mediterranean art, in which the bird is shown as a watchful, apotropaic presence rather than as a naturalistic study. The owl in the Roman world carried the iconographic inheritance of Athena/Minerva, for whom it was the sacred bird and the emblem of wisdom and vigilance. Beyond its Olympian association, the owl functioned in popular belief as a guardian against the evil eye and as a creature whose nocturnal sight pierced darkness, qualities that made it a natural subject for amuletic jewellery. Garnet, the stone chosen here for the eyes, was among the most widely used inlays in Roman gold of the first and second centuries, valued for its deep saturated colour and believed in ancient lapidary tradition to ward off harm and to strengthen the wearer. The combination of gold and garnet placed such an object within the register of protective adornment rather than purely decorative jewellery, and the choice of materials would have been read as much for their prophylactic charge as for their visual effect. Sheet-gold amulets of this kind were produced across the eastern provinces of the Empire, where workshops in Syria, Asia Minor, and the Levant continued and elaborated Hellenistic traditions of figural goldwork. The technique, hollow construction from hammered sheet with chased detail and inset cabochons, allowed the goldsmith to achieve a substantial visual presence with a minimum of bullion, and such pieces were typically suspended, sewn onto garments, or mounted as the centrepiece of a more elaborate ornament. This amulet exemplifies the Eastern Roman taste for figural goldwork in which iconographic meaning, protective function, and refined miniature craftsmanship converge. The owl type, frontal and disc-eyed, belongs to a recognisable family of Imperial-period amulets in which the bird of Minerva is reduced to its most arresting features, the eyes, and made the active agent of the object's apotropaic purpose. Height: 2.1cm

图片