A ROMAN JASPER INTAGLIO DEPICTING A JANUS ON A GOLD SETTING, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A ROMAN JASPER INTAGLIO DEPICTING A JANUS ON A GOLD SETTING, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D. The oval intaglio of deep red jasper is set within a plain gold bezel above a smooth, tapering hoop of circular section, the shoulders rising cleanly to meet the collet without applied decoration. The stone is engraved in intaglio with a Janiform composition of four conjoined heads radiating from a central point, each bearded and shown in profile, their locks and beards rendered in short, deeply cut striations that catch the light across the polished surface. Traces of red pigment remain lodged within the deeper cuts of the engraving. The subject develops the familiar Roman iconography of Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings, thresholds, transitions, and endings, into an expanded quadrifrons form. Where the standard bifrons image opposes a bearded elder to a younger or beardless counterpart, here four bearded heads are arranged in rotational symmetry, a variant associated in Roman thought with Janus Quadrifrons, the four-faced aspect linked to the four cardinal directions and the four seasons. The type was given monumental expression in the Arch of Janus in the Forum Boarium and appeared on Republican and Imperial coinage, and its transfer to the private sphere of the seal ring suggests the wearer's identification with the god's dominion over passages, oaths, and the marking of time. Red jasper was among the most widely used hardstones for Roman engraved gems from the first century A.D. onward, valued for the crispness with which it took the wheel and for the depth of its colour, which read strongly in wax impressions. Its use in a gold ring of this weight and simplicity indicates a signet made for practical sealing rather than display, the plain hoop and unadorned bezel concentrating attention on the engraved device. The combination of a substantive gold mount with a well-cut jasper intaglio is characteristic of the equestrian and municipal classes of the early and middle Empire, for whom the seal ring served as both a legal instrument and a personal emblem. The Janiform intaglio holds a particular place within the corpus of Roman glyptic. Beyond its apotropaic and calendrical associations, the multiplication of faces on a single stone offered the engraver a formal problem answered here by compressing four profiles into an interlocking design that reads coherently from any orientation. The rendering of the beards in parallel gouges and the schematic treatment of the eyes place the work within the more linear tradition of Imperial provincial engraving rather than the finer classicising style of the metropolitan workshops. This ring exemplifies the pragmatic marriage of engraved gem and gold signet that defined Roman personal seal-use at its most functional. The choice of the Janus Quadrifrons, a rarer variant than the standard bifrons, distinguishes it within the wider body of surviving Roman intaglios and situates it among those examples where the wearer's device carried a specific claim on the god's protection over thresholds and time. Dimensions: Length of stone 1.9 cm; internal diameter 2.2 cm

图片