A RARE ROMAN OBSIDIAN FIGURE OF A SEA HORSE, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

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A RARE ROMAN OBSIDIAN FIGURE OF A SEA HORSE, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D. Carved in the round from a dense block of black obsidian, the creature shown in profile with head raised, muzzle elongated and slightly downturned, and body arching into a tightly curled tail. The mane and dorsal ridge are rendered as a continuous series of scalloped fin-crests running from the crown to the base of the tail, while the flanks are worked in regular horizontal ribbing to indicate the segmented body plates characteristic of the hippocampus. A single pectoral fin, softly striated, projects from the mid-body. The eye is large and circular, drilled and set within a raised orbital ring, and the coiled tail terminates in a rosette-like disc incised with radiating lines around a central boss. The surface retains a deep glassy lustre where undisturbed, with russet weathering and matte encrustation visible along the ridges of the crest, the muzzle, and the tail terminal. The subject is the hippocampus, the fish-tailed horse of Graeco-Roman marine iconography, companion and mount of Neptune and of the Nereids, and a standard motif in the visual vocabulary of the sea. In Roman art the hippocampus appears across scale and medium — in mosaic pavements of maritime thiasoi, on sarcophagi with Nereid processions, on gems and rings, and as a decorative motif on silver plate and bronze appliqués. Its presence carried apotropaic force in contexts connected with water, travel, and passage, and it served equally as an ornamental type in the domestic sphere. The tightly furled tail terminating in a floreate disc, and the sharply defined dorsal crest, follow the conventions of the type as it is known from Roman decorative arts of the first and second centuries. Obsidian is a material of particular consequence in this context. A volcanic glass sourced principally from the central Mediterranean islands, from Anatolia, and from the eastern Aegean, it required both access to distant quarries and the specialist skill to work a substance that fractures conchoidally under the chisel. In Roman luxury production obsidian was reserved for small-scale carvings, inlays, portrait heads, and vessels intended for elite consumption, and Pliny records its use for prestige objects at Rome. The choice of obsidian for a figure of a hippocampus is therefore not incidental: the glassy black substance evokes the dark reflective surface of deep water, and the material itself signals a commission of some standing. This figure exemplifies the Roman taste for miniature carving in hard and precious stones, in which established iconographic types were translated from marble and bronze into the more demanding vocabulary of glyptic materials. The confident handling of the ribbed body, the balanced volumes of head and coiled tail, and the retention of a high finish across curved surfaces place it within the tradition of Roman luxury lapidary work of the early Imperial period. Dimensions: Height: 7.9cm

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