A GRAECO-ROMAN GOLD SNAKE RING CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A GRAECO-ROMAN GOLD SNAKE RING WITH GARNET, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D. Formed from a single length of gold worked into multiple coils, the serpent rises with head raised in an alert, upright posture above a body that loops and knots upon itself before tapering to a tail curled beneath. The head is finely modelled with almond eyes, incised brow, and a scaled crown running down the nape, the scales rendered as chased overlapping leaf-forms that continue in bands along the length of the body. Near the centre of the composition the body knots into a Hercules knot, at the heart of which is bezel-set a circular cabochon garnet of deep purplish-red tone. The lower coils are bound by a plain collar and terminate in the tapering tail, chased to match the head. The serpent coiled upon itself and clasping a stone in its knotted centre draws on a widespread iconography of the ouroboros and the apotropaic snake, understood across the Hellenistic and early Roman worlds as an emblem of regeneration, protection, and continuity. The Hercules knot at the ring's centre carries its own charged meaning, deriving from the knot said to bind the lion-skin of Herakles: in Graeco-Roman jewellery it was worn as a protective device, credited with the power to close wounds and avert harm, and it appears widely on rings, diadems, and armbands from the late Hellenistic period into the early Empire. The union of the two motifs, serpent and Hercules knot, doubles the amuletic charge of the object. The choice of gold and garnet is not incidental. Gold, incorruptible and untarnishing, was the standard medium for serpent jewellery in this period precisely because the metal's permanence answered the serpent's own symbolism of renewal through the shedding of its skin. Garnet, imported into the Mediterranean from sources in the East, was among the most sought after of the coloured stones of the late Hellenistic and early Imperial workshops, prized for its saturated tone and its association with the blood of life. Similar coiled serpent rings and armlets in gold, often set with garnet or emerald, are known from Ptolemaic Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Italian peninsula, and reflect the shared jewellery vocabulary that spread through the Hellenised world in the last centuries B.C. and the first century of Roman rule. Rings of this openwork sculptural type belong to a category distinct from the plain coiled hoop, and are among the more ambitious productions of the Graeco-Roman goldsmith. The freestanding loops of the body stand well clear of the finger, so that the ring reads in three dimensions as a small sculpture in the round, requiring careful annealing and forming from wire and sheet rather than simple wrapping. This ring exemplifies the Graeco-Roman serpent ring at its most developed, where the amuletic vocabulary of ouroboros and Hercules knot is fused into a single sculptural object, and where the choice of gold and garnet answers the symbolic programme as directly as it answers the aesthetic one. It stands as a representative example of the ambitious end of the type, distinct from the plain coiled hoop and closer to the goldsmith's work in armlets of the same period. Dimensions: Internal diameter 1.5 cm

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