Engraved gems as part of the Augustan propaganda. Some examples from Croatia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gołyźniak P. Octavian/Augustus’s propaganda messages encoded on ancient engraved gems from the Constantine Schmidt-Ciążyński collection. In: Bąkowska-Czerner G. and Bodzek J. (eds.), Augustus. From Republic to Empire, pp. 62-73. Oxford: Archaeopress., 2017
The rich collection of engraved gems once belonging to Constantine Schmidt-Ciążyński, now preserved at the National Museum in Krakow, provides a number of interesting and valuable pieces. Among them are several objects testifying to the use of glyptic art by Octavian/Augustus in his propaganda campaigns. This paper aims to present six intaglios and one cameo from this collection and to explain their propagandistic value. The study is also a contribution to a broader discussion on the use of engraved gems for personal branding and propaganda purposes in the Late Roman Republic and the early Principate.
Engraved gems from Andetrium in the Zagreb Archaeological Museum
Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu, vol. 54, no. 1, 2021, pp. 45-54, 2021
This paper analyses 11 engraved gems from Gornji Muć. They belong to the collection of Roman engraved gems in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb and were acquired in the 19 th century by Mijo Jerko Granić, the priest of Gornji Muć. These gems were found in Gornji Muć, which was the location of the Roman auxiliary fort of Andetrium, and therefore add to our knowledge of Roman gems from military sites in Croatia.
People Abroad. Proceedings of the XVI. International Colloquium on Roman Provincial Art, April 9–13th 2019, Tübingen / Lipps, Johannes (ed.).), 2021
Engraved gems as very personal objects can reveal information about the people who wore them, about their status, profession, and religion. They can even hint at the origin of their owner, which is sometimes the case with gems depicting the oriental or native gods. In an attempt to recognize the foreign identities on the engraved gems, four engraved gems and four glass gems from the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb have been singled out. One intaglio and one glass gem have no record of their finding place. At the same time, the rest belong to stray finds from different sites in the Roman Provinces of Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia. Three intaglios and four glass gems depict oriental deities Jupiter-Serapis and Isis, Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter Heliopolitanus, and Harpocrates. Last is the engraved gem showing the cavalryman with the long Celtic shield from Dalj (Teutoburgium). The group of gems discussed in the paper expands our knowledge of oriental cults in Roman provinces mentioned above and testifies to the mobility of people as well.
Gołyźniak P. Ancient Engraved Gems in the National Museum in Krakow. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag 2017., 2017
The book is available to order from: https://reichert-verlag.de/schlagworte/altaegyptischer\_stil\_schlagwort/9783954902439\_ancient\_engraved\_gems\_in\_the\_national\_museum\_in\_krakow-detail This book is a catalogue raisonée of a rich collection of ancient engraved gems housed in the National Museum in Krakow. It offers a thorough insight into ancient glyptic art through the considerable range of almost 780 so far unpublished objects – cameos, intaglios, scarabs and finger rings of various styles, workmanship and cultural circles: Egyptian, Near Eastern, Minoan, Greek, Etruscan, Italic, Roman, Sassanian and early Christian, dated from the second millennium BC to the seventh century AD. Many pieces in this cabinet are notable not only for their top quality in terms of craftsmanship and design, but also for the materials used and engravings involving complex iconography illustrating religious beliefs, political allegiances, needs and desires that ancient people wished to be fulfill, fears, dangers and terrors from which they sought protection and even their daily occupations. The collection provides with a fascinating gallery of portrait studies presenting Hellenistic rulers and their queens, Roman emperors and members of their families as well as some private individuals. Some specimens are exceptional and unparalleled like the onyx cameo portraying Drusus Maior, likely executed by the hand of Eutyches, son of famous Dioscurides (cover) or a tiny but remarkably cut emerald cameo with a laureate portrait bust of Livia Drusilla as goddess Venus. Some objects have been preserved in their original settings (gold, silver, bronze, iron rings), which contributes to the study of ancient gems’ chronology and indicate their users, while others have been later re-set into eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collectors’ rings and sometimes more elaborated mounts. There are also pieces discoloured due to contact with considerable heat, which may suggest them to have been burnt with other personal objects on the funeral pyres and later deposited in burials. Noteworthy is the number of Greek and Latin inscriptions appearing on intaglios and cameos forming this cabinet. They span from owners’ names to the subtle messages communicated between lovers and invocations to the God. Each gem is thoroughly analysed, described and exhaustively commented as to the device it bears, chronology and possible workshop attribution. A vast number of parallel objects is referenced too. This combined with provenance study presented in the first part of the book enabled to establish where a number of intaglios and cameos were manufactured, including almost 140 objects most likely to origin from the most important Roman workshop located in Aquileia. It ought to be singled out that many gems in this volume once constituted a part of distinguished collections formed by such personalities as Tobias von Biehler, Alessandro Gregorio Capponi, Auguste le Carpentier, Alessandro Castellani, Comte de Caylus, Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidoff, Baron Albert de Hirsch, Jean François Leturcq, Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen, Dr. George Frederick Nott, Benedetto Pistrucci, James-Alexandre de Pourtalès (Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier), Paul von Praun, Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky, Jacques Meffre Rouzan, Philipp von Stosch, Antonio Maria Zanetti and many more. They seemed lost for more than 130 years, but now have been brought back and are accessible to everyone. Consequently, the volume presents three intriguing stories of collectors whose donations contributed to the Krakow assemblage. They not only provide the reader with a sort of background for the objects discussed further, but also illustrate nineteenth- and early twentieth-century collecting practices and the art market for engraved gemstones, contributing to our knowledge of the history of scholarship and collecting. In summary, this book is intended to be useful not only for scholars interested in gems, but also those who study the history of the art market and collecting as well as all the enthusiasts of Classical art and archaeology.
Catalogue of Engraved Gems, Greek, Etruscan and Roman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Preface; History of the Collection; Abbreviations; General Introduction; The uses of Gems; The choice of designs on gems; The technique of gem engraving; The materials used for ancient gems; Appreciation and collecting of gems; Gem engravers and their signatures; Forgeries; Catalogue; I. Greek; II. Etruscan and Italic; III. Roman intaglios, first century b.c. to fourth cantury a.d.; IV. Hellenistic and Roman Cameos and Works in the round, second century b.c. to fourth century a.d.; Concordance of the numbers in the 1920 and the 1956 editions of the catalogue; General index; Index of inscriptions.