A PAIR OF EASTERN ROMAN GOLD AND GARNET & EMERALD EARRINGS CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A PAIR OF EASTERN ROMAN GOLD, GARNET AND EMERALD EARRINGS, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D. Each earring formed as a tapered gold pendant suspended from a circular hoop of round-section wire, the hoop framed along its outer edge by a fine beaded wire and closing by a small loop-and-hook fastening. From the base of each hoop hangs an articulated drop: an upper section composed of a square gold collet set with a rectangular emerald in its natural hexagonal prismatic form, above and below which are collared baluster mouldings drawn to a slender waist. Below hangs a garnet bead carved in the round as a female head, the hair centrally parted and drawn back in soft waves over the temples, the face broad-cheeked with heavy-lidded eyes and a small closed mouth. Each head is capped by a plain gold collar at its base, terminating in a small pendant granule. The carved garnet heads are the focal element and belong to a well-established Roman type of miniature portrait bead worn as personal adornment. The frontal, symmetrical treatment of the coiffure, with its central parting and waved side sections, corresponds broadly to female hairstyles current in the Antonine period, and the heads are likely intended as generic idealised portraits of a young woman rather than as securely identifiable divine figures, although a reading as Aphrodite or as one of the imperial family cannot be excluded. Such carved gemstone heads circulated across the eastern Roman provinces, where lapidary workshops in Alexandria, Antioch and the Syrian coastal cities produced portrait beads in garnet, amethyst and rock crystal for mounting as pendants and earrings. The material choices are significant. Garnet, imported into the Roman world in quantity from India and Sri Lanka along the Indian Ocean trade routes, was among the most prized coloured stones of the imperial period and its use in carved portrait form represents the upper register of provincial lapidary practice. The emeralds set above the drops are almost certainly of Egyptian origin, from the mines of Mons Smaragdus in the Eastern Desert, which supplied the Mediterranean market throughout the Roman period; the stones are here retained in their natural crystal form, a treatment characteristic of Roman jewellery of the first three centuries A.D., where the prismatic shape of the beryl crystal is valued as ornament in itself and set without further cutting. The combination of gold, deep red garnet and green beryl produced the colour contrasts most sought after by wealthy patrons in the eastern provinces. The construction, with its beaded hoop, articulated drops and collared baluster mounts, is characteristic of the eastern workshops of Roman Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt during the second century, where Hellenistic goldsmithing traditions continued under imperial patronage. The survival of the pair intact, with both garnet heads preserved and both emerald crystals in place, is uncommon. This pair exemplifies the eastern Roman taste for polychrome jewellery in which imported gemstones, worked in miniature portrait form, were mounted in restrained gold settings to produce ornaments of considerable cost and evident status. The carved garnet heads place these earrings within the small group of Roman jewels that unite lapidary portraiture with goldsmith's work, and they stand as characteristic products of the workshops that served the wealthy women of the Greek East under the Antonines. Dimensions: Height: 6.5 cm; Total Weight: 11 g

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