The History Blog

The ancient carved gemstone collection of Roman art dealer Giorgio Sangiorgi had so deep a bench that Christie’s is now on the third auction dedicated to his impeccably curated miniature masterpieces. There are 48 Greek, Roman and Etruscan intaglio gems crafted between 1700 B.C. and the 3rd century A.D. on offer in this third and final auction.

Giorgio Sangiorgi had an art gallery in the Palazzo Borghese on tony Via Ripetta in Rome. Founded by his father Giuseppe in 1890, the gallery specialized in European art and antiquities. It also ran auctions and exhibitions, so father and son had close business connections with all the major museums, institutions and private collectors. Giorgio developed a special interest in ancient glass and gems. He became an avid collector, keeping the greatest pieces he could get his hands on and publishing numerous scholarly articles on the subject. (Interestingly, he never published his own collection. Nobody outside the family even knew this treasure existed until 2018.)

In the late 1930s, Giorgio Sangiorgi saw the writing on the wall and decided to get his precious collection to safety before Italy was mired in war. He moved it to Switzerland for its protection. Sangiorgi died in 1965 and his collection remained in the family until the first part of it appeared at auction in 2019. The collection was sold in parts to ensure the market wasn’t glutted and so that the most spectacular stones didn’t overshadow the ones of lower appraised value.

The auction is currently open online and closes on April 14th. The catalogue is a wonderful browse, and every one of the miniature masterpieces is worth exploring zoomed-in to see all the fine details.

Speaking of fine details, this 1st century A.D. Roman circular ringstone in banded sardonyx has to have the most minute carving I’ve ever seen. It is barely over an inch in diameter, smaller than a half dollar coin, and a good part of that is the uncarved white band that frames the chocolate brown center. On that carved surface of maaaybe 7/8ths of an inch are eight deities, six horses and two chariots. Oh, and a row of fluffy clouds.

The row of clouds divide the hemispheres of the carves surface. Above it are the Capitoline Triad — Juno, Jupiter and Minerva — enthroned. Jupiter sits in the center holding a tall scepter in the right hand. Minerva, wearing a helmet seated at Jupiter’s left, holds a shorter scepter in her lap. Juna to Jupiter’s right does as well. She also holds a phiale Emerging from the very end of the clouds are two wind deities blowing shell trumpets. Under the clouds are the moon goddess Selene driving a biga (two-horse chariot) followed by the sun god Sol driving his quadriga (four-horse chariot). Below them is Oceanus, reclining languorously on a toppled vase.

So how big could that quadriga with its four overlapping horses and realistic articulated hooves, possibly be? Maybe a quarter inch? How tiny were the blades the engraver used to carve those horses’ legs? Intaglio carving is always mind-blowingly tiny, but these figures are by far the tiniest I’ve encountered. The pre-sale estimate for this piece is a modest $15,000-$20,000.

I’m going to put another amazing gemstone on offer behind the jump because it’s an explicit scene of a satyr copulating with a donkey and most definitely NSFW. It is not, I repeat, NOT short on the phalluses. Pun very much intended.

(more…)

A Bronze Age female figurine discovered in the Tollense River in northern Germany may have been a balance weight, a goddess or both. The figurine was found by Ronald Borgwardt, a truck driver who has been scouting the archaeological and watery depths of the Tollense since the 1990s, on July 20th, 2020. He was snorkeling in the river east of Rostock when he discovered a small bronze figurine in the sediments of the bank. He found a bronze arm ring a few feet away.

Just a hair under six inches tall and weighing 155 grams, the figurine has a flat body, an ovoid shaped head with prominent nose and eyes, looped arms, two bumps for breasts, a shallow vertical cut at the crotch indicating female genitalia and legs with protruding knees. The right leg is strongly bowed, the left straighter. She wears a neck ring and a belt. Typology dates the figurine to the 7th century B.C.

About a dozen similar figurines have been found near the Baltic Sea in Zealand, Scandia and one in northern Germany which was then part of the Nordic Bronze Age culture. The other German figurine was discovered in around 1840 just 20 miles from the most recent find; unfortunately its whereabouts are currently unknown. Most of them have been found near rivers or the Baltic coast. The Tollense is a bit of a double-whammy as it is both a river and direct connection to the Baltic Sea.

Researchers have hypothesized that these statuettes may have been used as balance weights based on a weight unit of 26 grams, but with such a limited number of examples it seemed unlikely they could have been quotidian tools as there would be more widespread evidence of them on the archaeological record. The 155-gram weight of this example, however, is an almost exact multiple of 26 grams, which may or may not be of significance given that this is the heaviest of the figurines. The second heaviest weighs 133 grams, which is another almost-multiple of 26.

The Tollense river valley is famed for the great number of archaeological materials and remains from a violent clash (battle? massacre?) that took place there in the early 13th century B.C. It’s possible that the figurine was deposited in commemoration of the conflict that had taken place there centuries earlier.

The female figures with looped arms are related to distinctive places of the Later Bronze Age landscape, and the recently discovered specimens from the Tollense valley supports their close connection to communication routes. The significance of the lower Oder area for Later Bronze Age trade is reflected in a concentration of bronze hoards around the island of Usedom, c. 50 km to the east. The wetland context supports the notion of a deposition in a transitional sphere between the real and the underworld. The figures have been considered as evidence for worship (as epitome of a goddess), as evidence for trade (as balance weights), or both (‘goddesses of wealth’). The distribution over a relatively small area speaks rather against an interpretation as a Nordic goddess of this time.

Archaeologists have found seven pairs of Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches, one pair in each of seven burials unearthed in an excavation in Gloucestershire. The Cotswolds Archaeology team discovered more than 70 Anglo-Saxon burials at the site, some of them containing luxury grave goods. They date to the 5th or 6th century.

They’re known as saucer brooches after their shape: a circular central body with a raised rim. They are made of gilded copper alloy and were relief-cast (cast from a single piece of sheet metal) with decorative motifs in geometric patterns. The one pictured right features five “running spirals” (meaning they’re connected to each other like they were written in cursive) around a central boss of pellet-in-ring style. This is the most commonly found motif on saucer brooches with geometric patterns.

Ranging in size from 20-70 mm in diameter, saucer brooches were worn in pairs across the chest to fasten garments. Their designs are more simple than, for example, the long square-headed brooches which were so large they offered much more space to create complex, highly sophisticated designs. The saucer brooches are still a high-status signifier for burials from this early period of Anglo-Saxon history in England, often found in tandem with other expensive pieces of jewelry.

Those we uncovered were either positioned one on each shoulder, or two next to each other on the left shoulder with an associated clothing pin, giving a vivid impression of how they once looked on their wearers.