⁷⁄₁₆ in. (1.1 cm.) long

Giorgio Sangiorgi (1886-1965), Rome, acquired and brought to Switzerland, late 1930s; thence by continuous descent to the current owner.

J. Boardman and C. Wagner, Masterpieces in Miniature: Engraved Gems from Prehistory to the Present, London, 2018, p. 90, no. 78.

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Lot Essay

The scarab is finely detailed with a palmette on the back and incised winglets. The underside is engraved with a long-haired figure wearing a chiton and a himation over the shoulders and holding a flower, perhaps a lily. The scene is enclosed within a hatched border. Boardman and Wagner consider the figure male, while Sangiorgi thought female, and compared her to later Roman depictions of the goddess Spes (Hope), for whom there is no Etruscan equivalent. For Spes on a bronze sestertius holding a similar flower see pl. 67, no. 235 in J.P.C. Kent, Roman Coins.