/event-detail/49856/sale-i-ancient-and-modern-glyptics

Thank you for registering to the auction and leaving your absentee
bid. Your request has been successfully submitted.
Please check your email for further communication.
Thank you for registering to the auction and leaving your phone.
Your request has been successfully submitted.
Please check your email for further communication.
Thank you for registering to the auction. Your request has been
successfully submitted.
Please check your email for further communication.
Thank you for updating your information, it has been successfully
submitted.
Please check your email for further communication.

Consign an object

Upload your object image Upload your factsheet object img

Additional information

Something went wrong, please fill in the mandatory fields.

Your email has been successfully sent.

Please accept the Terms and Conditions to send your consignment request

*A Roman magical green and brown jasper intaglio. Phoenix.

£ 3200

Download Print

*A Roman magical green and brown jasper intaglio. Phoenix.

£ 3200

1.9 x 1.6 x 0.3 cm (0 ³/₄ x 0 ⁵/₈ x 0 ¹/₈ inches)
Mounting on request
Roman art, 2nd-3rd century A.D.

This lot is sold under temporary import status.

Oval intaglio, flat face. A bird stands to the right on a groundline, crowned with a radiate nimbus, tail feathers extended. In the field, an eight-rayed star and five Greek letters in two groups flanking the bird: ΜΛ and ΓΗΟ.

The radiate crown identifies a solar phoenix, Graeco-Roman heir of the Egyptian Bennu of Heliopolis, the bird of the primordial mound and the first sunrise. Herodotus (II.73), Pliny (NH X.2) and Tacitus (Ann. VI.28) carried the legend to Rome, where the phoenix became the imperial device of Aeternitas.
Green jasper is the material canonically associated with solar and regenerative amulets: this is a charm of renewal, not a decorative device.

The gem stands apart from Bonner’s Phoenix class — bird on globe and column, ringed by solar animals, on black haematite — being simpler, on green jasper, and considerably rarer. The bipartite legend follows a pattern known on gems of this family (cf. CBd-2, CBd-502, CBd-1046). The sequence ΜΛ ΓΗΟ is unattested in the published corpora and given as read on the stone.

The afterlife of the image is exceptional. Christian apologetics claimed the bird as proof of the resurrection; the alchemists then made it the emblem of the rubedo, the final red stage, on the logic that matter must burn to ash before it lives — cineres nostri, our ashes. It recurs through the engraved corpus of the 16th–17th centuries, reaching it by way of the humanist reading of ancient gems as hieroglyphs (Horapollo, printed 1505; Valeriano, 1556). Gems such as this one are the source of that lineage.
Formerly in the private collection of J.A. Mariaud de Serres, Paris

This lot is sold under temporary import status.
Á. M. Nagy, “Le phénix et l’oiseau-benu sur les gemmes magiques”, in Phénix : mythe(s) et signe(s), Bern, 2001, 57–84 — C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, Ann Arbor, 1950 — S. Michel, Die Magischen Gemmen, Berlin, 2004 — A. Mastrocinque, Sylloge Gemmarum Gnosticarum, Rome, 2003–2008, I, 72–73 ; Les intailles magiques… BnF, Paris, 2014 — R. van den Broek, The Myth of the Phoenix, Leiden, 1972.
 

Each piece of jewellery is delivered with an authentification certificate signed by Bianca Massard and Gabriele Vangelli de Cresci experts, including additional documentation if existing and exhaustive description of the piece.
Pictures are part of the description and show state of conservation of the item. For additional pictures please contact us. (see contact section)

Shipping and pick-up at the store options can be chosen during check out.

Our exclusive delivery partner is ThePackengers.
ThePackengers, specialized in the packaging and transport of works of art and collectibles, already collaborates with the largest auction houses as Drouot, but also with galleries, fairs, antique dealers, decorators and e-marketplaces.
See our Country List
Shipping Terms and Conditions.
Privacy Policy ThePackengers.

Each piece of jewellery is delivered with an authentification certificate signed by Bianca Massard and Gabriele Vangelli de Cresci experts, including additional documentation if existing and exhaustive description of the piece.
Pictures are part of the description and show state of conservation of the item. For additional pictures please contact us. (see contact section)

Shipping and pick-up at the store options can be chosen during check out.

Our exclusive delivery partner is ThePackengers.
ThePackengers, specialized in the packaging and transport of works of art and collectibles, already collaborates with the largest auction houses as Drouot, but also with galleries, fairs, antique dealers, decorators and e-marketplaces.
See our Country List
Shipping Terms and Conditions.
Privacy Policy ThePackengers.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

A Roman Republican Carnelian Intaglio. Nemesis with butterfly.

£ 4200

A 18th/19th century chalcedony intaglio depicting a priapic scene.

£ 3500

A Grand Tour Carnelian Intaglio A Young Faun Seated before a Herm of Pan

£ 9500

A Victorian carnelian engraved seal. Allegorical figure

£ 1100

*A fine Greek garnet intaglio from the Sangiorgi collection. Hercules.

£ 9500

A large Greek Late hellenistic Bloodstone intaglio. Bull with snake.

Price on request