Advanced Search 
Cameo with portrait busts of an Imperial Julio-Claudian couple
Roman
Imperial Period
mid-1st century A.D.
Medium/Technique
Sardonyx
Dimensions
Overall: 4.8 x 4.3 cm (1 7/8 x 1 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Henry Lillie Pierce Fund
Accession Number98.754
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsJewelry, Ancient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment – Cameos
DescriptionWhite on brown layered sardonyx. Cameo. Two busts of a Julio-Claudian couple side-by-side; they are carved in very high relief. The man is wreathed and garbed in a toga, the edge of which is pulled over his head in an attitude of piety. He resembles portraits of the descendants (known as the “Julio-Claudians”) of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The woman is garbed in the stola and under-tunic. Her hair is arranged in waves spreading from a central part; small curls appear below the wave on her forehead. Heavy ringlets fall over her shoulders. She also wears a wreath. The exact identities of these Imperial family members are not certain, but possibilities include Nero and Octavia, Claudius and Messalina or Agrippina, or Caligula and Drusilla. There is a chip in the lower edge of the gem, below the woman’s right shoulder.
ProvenanceSaid to have been found in Egypt, in the Fayoum, and then to have been in the Giovanni di Demetrio Collection [note 1]. By 1892, Michal Tyszkiewicz (b. 1828 - d. 1897), Rome; June 8 - 10, 1898, posthumous Tyszkiewicz sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, lot 273. 1898, Edward Perry Warren (b. 1860 - d. 1928), Rome and London; 1898, sold by Warren to the MFA for $69,618 [note 2]. (Accession Date: September 20, 1898)
Notes:
[1]Wilhelm Froehner, La Collection Tyszkiewicz (Munich, 1892), p. 31, pl. XXXIII, 2.
[2]Total price for MFA accession nos. 98.641-98.940.
Notes:
[1]Wilhelm Froehner, La Collection Tyszkiewicz (Munich, 1892), p. 31, pl. XXXIII, 2.
[2]Total price for MFA accession nos. 98.641-98.940.