Roman Bronze Artefact Collection

The oval intaglio engraved with a whimsical image of a stork emerging from the mouth of a large seashell, its neck arched forward to seize a small mouse by the tail; set in a finely made 19th-century ring with openwork shoulders; supplied with a museum-quality impression. 4.25 grams, 24.31 mm overall, 19.30 mm internal diameter (approximate size British T, USA 9 1/2, Europe 21.26, Japan 20)



Acquired on the European art market. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13365-257944.

The stork, a bird symbolic in antiquity of vigilance, filial piety, and longevity, here appears in an imaginative fusion with a marine shell—an element often associated with Venus and the sea. The capture of the mouse adds an element of humour and narrative intrigue, perhaps evoking themes of cunning, the triumph of wit, or the unexpected in nature. Such unusual compositions are occasionally found in Roman glyptics of the late Republican period, appealing both for their novelty and symbolic richness.

With a hollow spherical body decorated with slightly concave petals radiating from each end, separated by a central grooved band; one end with a tapering funnel marked by horizontal grooves, the other with a short tapering neck and a wide rim. 356 grams, 29.5 cm



Old Austrian private collection, 1980s. Accompanied by a copy of a nine-page examination report number 154/2026 by Dr habil Mikhail Treister. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12905-242699.

Comparable instruments, usually called clepsydra in Greek and infundibulum in Latin, were in use in the 5th – first half of the 4th centuries B.C. A total of 13 such objects, or clepsydra, are known, including two of the unknown origin), represented by the finds both from Central (Lazio) and South (Campania, Calabria and Basilicata) Italy, Illyria (Apollonia) and Central Greece (Boeotia, Phocis) (all made of bronze), from the Taman peninsula in the North Pontic area, a fragmented one – from the Ulyap kurgan necropolis in the Trans-Kuban region and a silver piece from an aristocratic Thracian burial in the Plovdiv region. A distinctive feature of all these metal objects is the combination of a narrow vertical tube, at the lower end turning into a container with holes in the bottom.

Comprising eight large beads, four domed, one melon, two spherical and one oval rock crystal bead. 78.2 grams total, 13-33 mm



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