Details
138 in. (3.5 cm.) wide
Provenance
Giorgio Sangiorgi (1886-1965), Rome, acquired and brought to Switzerland, late 1930s; thence by continuous descent to the current owner.
Literature
J. Boardman and C. Wagner, Masterpieces in Miniature: Engraved Gems from Prehistory to the Present, London, 2018, p. 224, no. 209.
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Lot Essay

This two-layered onyx cameo, white over translucent brown, depicts a Bacchic scene within the god's sanctuary, all on a raised groundline. To the left, a maenad reclines on her mantle, which also envelops her legs, leaving her torso nude. With her right hand she grasps a tympanon hanging from the branch of a bare tree. On a plinth before her stands a draped and bearded statue of Bacchus, holding a thyrsus and a kantharos. In front of the statue is another, lower plinth upon which stands a goat, its head turned back and its forelegs held by a youthful satyr wearing a nebris, seated upon rocks. A syrinx (Pan pipes) hangs from a branch above the goat's head. The scene was copied during the 18th century, although on one example the scale of the figures differs and there are some additions, including a thysus alongside the maenad (see pl. CXI, no. 9 in G. Lippold, Gemmen und Kameen des Altertums und der Neuzeit).

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Masterpieces in Miniature: Ancient Engraved Gems formerly in the G. Sangiorgi Collection Part III
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