print;
book-illustration
- Museum number
- 1891,0414.1233
- Title
- Series: Varie Figueri de Agati Antique
- Description
-
Gemma Tiberiana or The Glorification of Germanicus; irregularly shaped cameo in two registers; in top register, Tiberius as Jupiter seated on a throne at centre, with Julia seated next to him, Germanicus standing in armour in front of them, his wife Agrippina at far right, Cybele with other figures above; in lower register, prisoners and shields; from a set of nine plates showing antique cameos after drawings by Rubens; illustration to Albert Rubens' "De Re Vestiaria Veterum" (Antwerp, 1665). 1623
Engraving
- Production date
- 1623 (published 1665)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 323 millimetres
-
Width: 274 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This is one from a series of nine, for comment see 1858,0417.1268.
The cameo was found by Peiresc in 1620 in the sacristy of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The scene was first explained by Peiresc as the 'Apotheosis of Augustus'. It is wrongly titled 'Gemma Augustaea' by Schneevoogt.
The plate is unsigned but Paulus Pontius has been suggested as the printmaker, although he only entered Rubens' studio in 1624.
This plate was used in an appendix on gems "Dissertatio de Gemma Tiberiana" to Albert Rubens' "De Re Vestiaria Veterum" in 1665 (published posthumously).
After the drawing by Rubens in the Prentenkabinet, Antwerp, inv.no.109; a grisaille is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (C. White, 'Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings. Dutch, Flemish, and German Paintings before 1900', Oxford 1999, pp. 117-123, no. A 1169, pl. 12). The cameo (a five-layered sardonyx) is in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris.
Lit.: Hans Jakob Meier, "Die Kunst der Interpretation. Rubens und die Druckgraphik", Berlin 2020, p. 176 (Cat. nr. 20).
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Dissertatio De Gemma Tiberiana (Antwerp, 1665)
- Acquisition date
- 1891
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1891,0414.1233
