Roman Bronze Ring with Animal

Matched pair, each hoop with hook-and-eye closure, filigree wound round the shank, wire dangle. 3.92 grams total, 21 mm each



Acquired on the UK art market before 2000. Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

Formed as an irregular block with three possibly later polished sides, with the other three sides presenting a descending wall and two hollows carved in the upper and lower part; probably from an Imperial sarcophagus or monument; mounted on a custom-made stand. 10.55 kg, 31 cm including stand



Acquired from the private collection of a Somerset gentleman who was related to Sir Arthur Evans. From the private collection of a UK gentleman since before 2005.

For the Romans, porphyry was the Imperial marble par excellence, and from Constantine the Great until the end of the 5th century, but probably also later, it was used to create sarcophagi for the emperors and members of the Imperial families. This particular stone was connected with the Imperial family because of its red colour, recalling the violet and red shades of the purple (porphyra), the precious colour assigned only to emperors and their relatives. In Constantinople, a room of the Imperial palace was called Porphýra, located on one of the palace terraces overlooking the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. It was perfectly square in shape with a pyramidal ceiling and was entirely covered in purple porphyry speckled with white dots: this was the room where the empresses gave birth to the heir of the Roman Empire, called Porphyrogénnētos, meaning ‘born in the purple room’. Porphyry was widely used for building churches in the Christian Empire, and Justinian exhausted the supplies from Egypt by building the Great Church of Hagia Sophia, where still today a great amount of this material can be seen. The impressive Imperial sarcophagi were kept in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as well as the great porphyry sarcophagus of Constantine the Great, of which only a small fragment survives today in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul.

Modelled in the half-round, with grotesque facial features and scooped crescentic mouth, segmented beard; ferrous stud to reverse. 27.2 grams, 30 mm



Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s.