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A Roman gold snake bracelet image 1
A Roman gold snake bracelet image 2
A Roman gold snake bracelet image 3
Various Properties
Lot 114

A Roman gold snake bracelet

Antiquities
1 December 2020, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £10,837.50 inc. premium

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A Roman gold snake bracelet
Circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D.
The bracelet overlapping at the head and undulating tail, the naturalistically modelled tail and features with hatchings indicating scales, the mouth open with incised teeth, the underside also engraved, 7.3cm max diam., weight 52.3g.

Footnotes

Provenance:
Thétis Foundation.
Antiquities, the Property of the Thétis Foundation and Others; Sotheby's, London, 23 May 1991, lot 110.
Bedfield Hall collection, UK, acquired from the above sale.

Published:
J.-L. Zimmermann, Collection de la Fondation Thétis, Geneva, 1987, no. 147, pp. 80-81.

Snakes were popular motifs in jewellery across the Mediterranean. In Ancient Gold Jewelry at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas Museum of Art, 1996), B. Deppert-Lippitz writes: 'snake bracelets and rings in the shape of snakes were not only personal ornaments but also amulets. Probably for this reason they are one of the few naturalistic motifs that continued to be popular long after the decline of the Greek world' (p. 108).

Additional information

Bid now on these items

An Anatolian marble idol
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