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Scaraboid gem with a nude youth and a horse
Epimenes (Greek)
Greek
Late Archaic Period
about 500 B.C.
Medium/Technique
Chalcedony
Dimensions
Width x height: 1.6 x 1.1 cm (5/8 x 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Bartlett Collection—Museum purchase with funds from the Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912
Accession Number27.677
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsJewelry, Ancient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment – Scarabs and scaraboids
Catalogue Raisonné
Lewes House Gems, no. 028 (1920; 2002, additional published references).
DescriptionIntaglio. Pierced for stringing (horizontal). Motif oriented horizontally. Naked youth seen in three-quarters backview, leaning back on right leg while holding the bridle of a restive horse. Hatched border. Inscribed in Greek: 'Epimenes made (me).'
ProvenanceSaid to be found in the Egyptian Delta, perhaps at Naucratis [see note 1]. By 1897, Michel Tyszkiewicz (b.1828-d. 1897), Rome. By 1926, Edward Perry Warren (b. 1860 – d. 1928), Lewes House, Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom; 1927, sold by Edward Perry Warren to the MFA for $ 161,000 [see note 2]. (Accession Date: November 17, 1927)
NOTES:
[1] According to Tyszkiewicz as told to E. P. Warren; recorded by J. D. Beazley in The Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems, ed. J. Boardman (Oxford, 2002), pp.25–27, no. 28.
[2] This figure is the total price for MFA accession nos. 27.647-27.761. Warren first lent this to the MFA in 1926 (loan no. 90.26).
NOTES:
[1] According to Tyszkiewicz as told to E. P. Warren; recorded by J. D. Beazley in The Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems, ed. J. Boardman (Oxford, 2002), pp.25–27, no. 28.
[2] This figure is the total price for MFA accession nos. 27.647-27.761. Warren first lent this to the MFA in 1926 (loan no. 90.26).