Friday, January 20, 2017

Carved Amethysts from Ancient Rome

Intaglio - Profile of a Woman
Roman Empire
1st century BC
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Some things are hastening to be, others to have come and gone, and a part of what is coming into being is already extinct. Flux and change renew the world incessantly, as the unbroken passage of time makes boundless eternity ever young. In this river, therefore, on which he cannot stand, which of these things that race past him should a man greatly prize? As though a boy should begin to set his heart on one of the little sparrows that fly past, when already it is gone away out of his sight. Truly the life of every man is itself as fleeting as the exhalation of spirit from his blood or the breath he draws from the atmosphere. For just as it is to draw a single breath and to return it, which we do every moment, so is it to render back the whole power of respiration, which you acquired but yesterday or the day before, at birth, to that other world from which you first drew it in."  

 from Meditations: VI of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) translated by A.S.L. Farquharson (Clarendon Press, 1944)

Intaglio - Bacchante
Roman Empire
1st century BC
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Medusa
Roman Empire
1st century BC
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Cockfight
Roman Empire
1st century BC
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - The Goddess Victoria
Roman Empire
1st century BC
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Apollo
Roman Empire
1st century BC - 1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - The Goddess Fortuna
Roman Empire
1st century BC - 1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - The Nymph Aura
Roman Empire
1st century BC - 1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Emperor Claudius
Roman Empire
1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Mercury
Roman Empire
1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Krater and Vine
Roman Empire
1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Abduction of Europa
Roman Empire
1st century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - Emperor Commodus as Jupiter
Roman Empire
2nd century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Intaglio - An Emperor as Hermes
Roman Empire
4th century AD
amethyst
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg