A ROMAN GOLD DOMED RING, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A ROMAN GOLD DOMED RING, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D. Of circular form, the hoop of thin wire twisted along its length to produce a spiralling ribbed surface, expanding at the shoulders where the metal is drawn up and folded to support the bezel. The bezel rises as an openwork dome, constructed from arched strips of sheet gold that meet at the summit, the interstices left open to reveal the interior. A small spherical granule is applied at the front of the bezel where it joins the shoulder, a second granule visible in profile. Traces of a pale calcareous concretion remain within the dome, adhering to the interior surfaces. The construction belongs to a class of Roman finger rings in which the bezel is built up as a claw or cage setting rather than as a solid disc. Such settings were designed to hold a bead, pearl, or cabochon in place, the stone secured between the vertical struts and visible from above through the crown of arches. The pale residue within the present bezel is consistent with the ghost of such an original insert, now lost. The twisted hoop, produced by torsion of a plain wire, is a technique widely encountered in Roman personal ornament of the first two centuries A.D., valued for the play of light across its faceted surface and for the economy with which it produced visual richness from a small quantity of metal. Gold in the early Imperial period was the preserve of a restricted class of wearers. Sumptuary conventions, and from the reign of Tiberius formal legal restrictions, reserved the gold ring for senators, equestrians, and those to whom the ius anuli aurei had been granted; its wearing was a public declaration of rank as much as an ornament. The lightness of the present ring, at a single gram, is characteristic of the period, when the goldsmith's craft was directed toward the maximum visual effect from the minimum of material, achieved through hollow construction, filigree, and openwork settings of the kind seen here. Rings of this cage-bezel type are recorded across the Roman provinces, from Italy through the Rhineland to the eastern Mediterranean, and appear both in funerary contexts and in domestic hoards. The form is generally understood as feminine, the small internal diameter and delicate construction suited to a woman's or child's finger, and the lost insert was most probably a pearl, a material particularly prized under the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors and frequently mounted in openwork settings that allowed the stone to be admired from every angle. This ring exemplifies the refinement of early Imperial goldsmithing, in which structural ingenuity, twisted wire, and openwork architecture were used to display a single small stone or pearl to maximum effect. Its survival, with the twisted hoop intact and the fragile cage bezel unbroken, preserves a characteristic form of Roman personal ornament in miniature. Dimensions: Diameter of face: 0.8 cm; internal diameter: 1.5 cm

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