LOT 0142

Roman Gold 'Bunched Grape' Jewellery Set

1ST CENTURY A.D.

1 - 1 1/4 in. (8.83 grams total, 24-32 mm).

Group of three gold pendants comprising: two formed as a cluster of granules with three lobes, larger granule to each apex and coiled wire suspension; one of similar profile, larger with filigree lines and coils to both faces, trumpet-shaped finial with loop; two repaired; housed in a custom-made display case.

Acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s.
Private collection, London, UK.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12812-241415.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Cf. De Ridder, Les bijoux et les pierres gravées, Paris, 1911, no.568, pl.2, 572, pl.3; Pollak, L., Klassisch-Antike Goldschmiedearbeiten im Besitze Sr. Exc. des Herrn von Nelidow in Rom, Leipzig, 1903, no.74, pl.8 (similar, late Hellenistic, with heads of Maenads); Piatischewa, ‘Juwelirnie Isdelija Chersonesa (Jewelry of Chersonesos)’ in TGIM Pamjatniki Kulturi, 18, 1956, p.49, pl.8, 11.11a; Greifenhagen, A., Schmuckarbeiten in Edelmetall, Banden I-II, Berlin, 1970, band II, no.4, p.66.

Typologically related earrings were particularly common in the Caucasus, where they have been dated by archaeologists to the first centuries A.D. This was mainly a product of Hellenised workers of the area of Pontus or Asia Minor, and the material culture of the Greek cities of the North Pontus region was completely absorbed by their new Roman rulers and largely diffused in style and orientation in the Eastern Roman provinces.