Details

LOT 0121

Roman Jasper Gemstone with Mercury

2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D.

1/2 in. (0.79 grams, 15 mm).

The god depicted naked, standing, looking left, holding a caduceus and a purse.

Provenance

Acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s.
Important North West London collection.

Literature

Cf. British Museum inventory no. 1917,0501.566, in Walters, H.B., Catalogue of Engraved Gems & Cameos, Greek, Etruscan & Roman in the British Museum, London, 1926, no.1385, for similar.

Footnotes

After his identification with the Greek Hermes, the Roman artists who realised his images for the Roman magistrates used the specific Greek elements of his personality (the winged low cap petasos, the face of a shaved young man, the caduceus, the winged shoes of Phekasia type) but added the attribute of a purse, specific to Mercury.