Italy. Marquisate of Saluzzo, Ludovico II Silver Issue in Later Silver Brooch.

Formed as a hand showing figa gesture, silver mount with applied twisted wires; attachment loop and ring to the top. 19.6 grams, 56 mm



Private collection, Europe. Acquired on the English art market.

Mano Fico, as protective amulets, have been used since antiquity. It was believed to protect from the evil eye and other dark and magical forces and to promote fertility. In ancient Rome, the fig sign, or mano fico, was made by the pater familias (father of the family) to ward off the evil spirits of the dead as a part of the Lemuria ritual. The ancient Greeks wore amulets of the gesture around the neck to protect from the evil eye, and also used the gesture in artwork. What they considered an overtly sexual gesture was expected to distract evil spirits from causing harm. The pendant would have been worn from a belt or from a chatelaine containing other protective talismans. This carving would have served as a token representing a person's pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, one of the very few places in which jet can be found and mined since at least the Middle Ages.

A ring dial with two bands open to one side at the centre; the outer surface engraved with measurement points and letters along the open mid section; to the inside, a series of incised lines and numbers for the hours of the day. 15.2 grams, 46 mm



From a UK collection formed in the 1980s. Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

The head, carved from pale green chalcedony, polished to a smooth lustre and with a drilled aperture at the crown, the hair in tight curls around the nape and crown; the silver-gilt torso dressed in a draped toga carefully chased with deep folds and traces of gilding across the high points; mounted on a later patinated bronze column stand in the neoclassical manner. 208 grams total, 10.9 cm high including stand



Acquired on the European art market.

This small-scale portrait evokes the Roman tradition of imperial portraiture and the early modern fascination with the ancient world. From the seventeenth century onwards, artists and collectors revived classical subjects through hardstone and gilt-metal compositions, often intended for display in Kunstkammer or Grand Tour contexts. The combination of a reused ancient or earlier element with a later mount was a practice typical of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, reflecting the period’s reverence for antiquity and its imaginative recontextualisation of ancient forms.