Details

LOT 254546

Eastern Greek Carnelian Scaraboid Gemstone with Nude Hero Holding Lions

6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.

3/4 in. (4.25 grams, 19 mm).

Scaraboid type with incuse design to the underside of a nude hero facing, holding one lion by the neck and another by the hindleg; supplied with a museum-quality impression. [No Reserve]

Provenance

From the private collection of a European gentleman (1942-2024), formed since the 1970s.

Literature

Cf. a similar (but not identical) gemstone with Herakles fighting a lion and a fox, in Boardman, J., Greeks gems and finger rings, Early Bronze Age to Late ClassicalLondon, 1970, no.343; cf. also Spier, J., Ancient Gems and finger Rings, catalogue of the collections, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1992, no.103.

Footnotes

The gem could be considered a representation of Heracles, even if the typology of iconography, which is inspired by the archaic one of Heracles, is unusual, and is influenced by the Mesopotamian environment, from where it borrows the frontal image of the hero (Gilgamesh or Enkindu) fighting with two beasts. The hero is beardless and holding an inverted lion, not certainly the Nemean one. He is acting like a master of the animals, showing eastern traits close to the Greco-Phoenician art. In the Phoenician workshops a similar image of the god Bes, holding two lions, as posis theron, is common. The type is more frequent in East than in West and is found on scarabs in Carnelian and chalcedony.