Byzantine or Merovingian Gold Ring with Emerald and Pearls

Broad with basal disc, cream-glazed inner face with green detailing, sgraffito design of tulip flowers and hatched bands. 322 grams, 15.2 cm



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Belt buckle plate with loops, lateral spurs and knop finial; low-relief scene of a man grappling with a beast in a landscape with tree and flowers; mounting lugs to the reverse; old collector's envelop with handwritten text 'sceau / Carthage / combat Homme et Lion / [..] Jardin' (seal / Carthage / fight between man and lion / [..] garden). 18.5 grams, 47 mm



Found in Carthage. From a 19th century collection based on the handwritten package. From the collection of a London antiquarian. Accompanied by an old hand written collector's envelope.

Comprising: a large bronze buckle with thick round-section loop, ribbed tongue with acanthus-leaf design in-high relief, two pierced lugs to the reverse; a smaller buckle with long plate decorated with openwork geometric forms; a small seal box shaped as a youthful head with details on hair and face, open catch at the top. 107 grams total, 39-68 mm



Acquired in Europe in 1992. European private collection.

This type of belt elements, although present in the Avar graves of the second half of the 7th century, were most likely produced in the workshops of the Eastern Roman Empire, from where they reached the Avar lands as imperial gifts or spoils of war. They could be simple fastenings for belts, or part of multiple belts, to which sabres and knives were attached, commonly used among Avars, Bulgars and Romans during the 6th -7th centuries A.D.