REPUBLICAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Name: A ROMAN CITRINE CAMEO WITH A THEATER MASK
Brand: REPUBLICAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.
Price: 60000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised USD 75,600

Estimate

USD 7,000 - USD 9,000

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A ROMAN CITRINE CAMEO WITH A THEATER MASK

REPUBLICAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Price Realised USD 75,600

¹³⁄₁₆ in. (2 cm.) long

Castellani Collection (perhaps Alessandro Castellani (1823-1883), Rome).
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. 235, no. 219.

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Lot Essay

Sculpted in high relief is the mask of a comic slave, with a characteristic megaphone-like mouth. He has large eyes with deeply drilled pupils, a thick arching unibrow and conforming creases on his high forehead. Masks as well as depictions of masked actors were popular subjects for cameos, most typically cut in onyx or sardonyx in order to exploit the color contrasts of the strata of the stone. Very few are cut on monochrome stones, as here (see the carnelian example, no. 77 in Boardman, Engraved Gems, The Ionides Collection).