A PAIR OF ROMAN GOLD & GEM SET EARRINGS, 2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A PAIR OF ROMAN GOLD AND GEM-SET EARRINGS, 2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D. Each earring formed of a stellate frontal plaque worked in sheet gold, the six radiating lobes pierced with circular openings between raised ribs converging on a central setting that retains traces of its original stone or pearl. Beneath the plaque, a pair of opposed scrolled volutes supports a horizontal gold bar, from which are suspended three articulated pendants on wire loops. Each pendant carries a small cabochon in a raised collet setting, alternating blue glass or lapis and red garnet, followed by a beaded gold rod terminating in a baroque freshwater pearl. The gold retains a warm colour with surface abrasion consistent with burial, and the settings preserve their original stones and pearls in largely complete condition. The stellate or rosette form belongs to a well-established Roman typology of pendant earrings that emerged in the eastern provinces and became widespread across the Empire during the second and third centuries. The upper plaque, pierced and modelled in low relief, would have caught the light against the wearer's ear, while the suspended row of coloured stones and pearls produced the tremulous polychrome effect that Roman jewellers termed crotalia, from the rattling of the pendants in motion. The alternation of blue and red beneath white pearl follows the standard Roman chromatic scheme, in which contrasting hardstones and glass were paired with the lustre of pearl to display both wealth and cosmopolitan reach. Pearls in the Roman world were among the most prized of all luxury materials, imported at considerable expense from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and repeatedly singled out by Pliny as the highest form of feminine adornment. Garnets travelled overland from India and Sri Lanka, while lapis and blue glass provided a more affordable substitute for sapphire. The combination of these materials on a single ear ornament was itself a statement of access to the long-distance trade routes that sustained imperial luxury consumption. Earrings of this construction, with a decorative frontal and a suspended bar carrying multiple drops, are associated in particular with the workshops of Roman Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor, though the type circulated widely and is recorded from Italy to the Black Sea. This pair exemplifies the mature Roman taste for polychrome pendant jewellery of the Antonine and Severan periods, in which the frontal plaque, the intermediate bar, and the mobile drops together produced ornaments intended to be seen in movement. The survival of both earrings with their original stones and pearls substantially intact is uncommon, and the pair stands as a coherent example of a form more often encountered in fragmentary state. Dimensions: Height: 4cm. Total Weight: 8g.

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