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Lot 114*

A Roman heliotrope intaglio with Sol driving a quadriga

6 July 2021, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

£1,000 - £1,500

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A Roman heliotrope intaglio with Sol driving a quadriga
Circa 2nd-3rd Century A.D.
Carved with the figure of Sol, wearing a radiate crown and chlamys across his chest and billowing behind, driving a chariot, his left arm raised and holding an orb (?), the horses galloping to the left, on groundline, 1.1cm long

Footnotes

Provenance:
with Vecchi & Sons, London.
with Coins & Antiquities Ltd, London, acquired from the above 27 May 1974.
Private collection, Switzerland.

See G.M.A. Richter, Engraved Gems of the Romans, London, 1971, p. 32, no. 85 for a similar depiction on a mottled agate intaglio at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Cf. also a mottled jasper intaglio in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, for a comparable depiction of radiate Sol holding an orb, though here the quadriga faces frontally (acc. no. 81.6.297).

Additional information

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