cameo
- Museum number
- 1923,0401.1076
- Description
-
Cameo of glass paste imitating sardonyx, engraved with a female portrait-bust, the head turned slightly to the left.
- Production date
- 1stC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 1.40 centimetres
-
Length: 1 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- The bust of this gem parallels another from Herculaneum (Pannuti 1983, no. 213). Both feature a female bust of parallel facial features, head turned to the side, hair parted in the middle and coiled around the ears, with tresses on the shoulders. This hairstyle parallels the marble portrait bust of another Julio- Claudian woman (GAA64611). Pannuti identifies the woman on the Herculaneum cameo potentially as Livia, while Muhlenbrock and Richter (2004) identify the same bust as Agrippina Minor. The facial features of the bust on this cameo parallel that of a portrait head in the National Museum of Warsaw, also identified as Agrippina Minor. The hairstyle and facial features of this bust certainly reaffirms a dating of this cameo to the first century CE.
Pannuti, U. 1983. Catalogo della collezione Glittica del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli vol. 1
Mühlenbrock, J. and Richter, D. 2004. Die letzten Stunden von Herculaneum: Verschüttet vom Vesuv.
There are three other cameos in this collection that bear the same or very similar portraits: 1868,0501.146; 1814,0704.1792; 1873,0502.172.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition notes
- Collection of gems previously unregistered.
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1923,0401.1076