A ROMAN GOLD & AGATE "DZI" INTAGLIO DEPICTING A MAN, 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A ROMAN GOLD AND BANDED AGATE INTAGLIO RING DEPICTING A STANDING FIGURE, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D. The hoop of plain gold, of solid construction and heavy section, rising from a rounded circular shank to broad tapering shoulders that swell smoothly into an elongated oval bezel. The bezel set with an oval banded agate cabochon, the stone showing concentric zones of translucent white and deep reddish-brown that frame the engraved field in the manner of an eye. The intaglio worked into the central brown zone, depicting a standing male figure in profile to the right, the head crowned or crested, the body draped, one arm extended forward to rest upon what appears to be a low column, plinth, or altar. The engraving executed with a small wheel, the modelling reduced to essentials, the contours firm. The figure's pose, standing frontally with weight on one leg and one hand set upon a support, follows a widely diffused Graeco-Roman formula used for a range of deities and heroes, among them Mercury, Mars, and personifications of Bonus Eventus or Virtus. Without a clearly legible attribute, secure identification is not possible from the engraving alone. The gesture of placing the hand upon a plinth, column, or trophy is nevertheless a standard signifier of authority, protection, or completed action, and objects of this kind were carried both as personal seals and as amulets whose engraved subject stood in a protective relationship to the wearer. The choice of banded agate is significant. Roman gem-engravers prized banded stones for the way the natural strata framed the engraved subject, and layered agates and sardonyx were among the more valuable materials available to the intaglio workshops of the first and second centuries. The banded structure, read in antiquity as apotropaic in itself, gave the gem the appearance of an eye when set in the finger and turned outward. Combined with a hoop of solid gold rather than gilt bronze or silver, the ring belongs to the upper register of Roman personal jewellery, most likely a signet worn by a member of the equestrian or curial class for whom the seal impression carried legal weight in the sealing of documents and property. The form of the hoop, with its heavy shoulders swelling smoothly into a fixed oval bezel, corresponds to a well-attested type produced across the Roman West and East during the first two centuries of the Empire, when the earlier practice of setting the intaglio in a separate bezel gave way to hoops cast or forged in a single piece with the setting. Such rings survive in numbers from provincial finds along the Rhine and Danube frontiers, from Italy, and from the eastern Mediterranean. This ring exemplifies the domestic and functional face of Roman glyptic art, where a modestly scaled but carefully chosen banded stone, engraved with a stock protective figure and set in a substantial gold hoop, served simultaneously as the wearer's legal seal, as a mark of status, and as a personal amulet. It is a representative example of the mature Imperial signet, in which material, form, and image were understood to work together. Dimensions: Length of stone 0.7 cm; internal diameter 1.6 cm

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