Scarab with Hercle/Herakles at a fountain
Italic, Etruscan
Late Archaic Period
500–475 B.C.
Catalogue Raisonné
Lewes House Gems, no. 043 (1920; 2002, additional published references).
Dimensions
Legacy dimension: 0.013 L.
Accession Number
27.718
Medium or Technique
Banded agate
Not On View
Collections
Classifications
White and dark brown banded agate. Scarab with a flat, oval base engraved in intaglio; pierced lengthwise. Nude, youthful Hercle/Herakles, in profile to left, leaning to fill a toe amphora at a lion-spouted fountain. A bow with a loose string and club are propped up behind him. Pellet border. An Etruscan inscription “Hercle” in negative runs clockwise behind the youth’s back. Back carved as a beetle with a hatched line around the thorax, three lines dividing the elytra, dotted head and winglets in relief. Detailed legs with spined front legs. Over an egg-and-dart plinth. A corroded bronze pin is lodged in the hole. Small chips missing on the beetle’s back and around the intaglio.
Provenance
By 1914: with Edward Perry Warren (according to J. D. Beazley, The Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems, no. 43: From Chiusi, bought in 1914); April 5, 1926: loaned to MFA by Edward Perry Warren (as 104.26); November 17, 1927: purchased by MFA from Edward Perry Warren for $ 161,000.00 (this figure is the total price for MFA 27.647-27.761)
Credit Line
Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912