Rare Cameo of Saturn as a Pendant in Gold, c. 1890

This pendant from around 1890 features a beautifully cut shell cameo in a gold setting. At first glance, it shows an unusual depiction of a bearded man. Saturn is depicted in profile to the right. Saturn, the Roman god, corresponds to the Greek Kronos and is one of the oldest deities of ancient religions. Originally, he was primarily a god of agriculture, the harvest and guardian of the state treasury, but was also associated with time in antiquity, for example by Cicero. Saturn is usually depicted as an old, bearded man with a sickle or a curved harvest knife (falx), which reflects both his function as god of the harvest and his role in the myth in which Kronos overthrew his father Uranus. In Roman tradition, Saturn was considered the husband of the goddess Ops and the ruler of the so-called Golden Age (aurea aetas), a mythical era of abundance and equality in which people lived without toil and did not have to sow but only reap. After he was overthrown by his son Jupiter, in line with Greek tradition, Saturn is said to have fled to Latium, where he was taken in by the god Ianus. There he taught the people how to cultivate the fields and vineyards and established a peaceful order that was remembered as "Saturnia regia". In his honor, the Romans celebrated the Saturnalia, a festival during which social boundaries were temporarily abolished. Despite this idealized rule, Saturn is also associated with an older, ambivalent dimension that is linked to archaic, sometimes cruel ideas; it is reported that he was eventually placed in chains, the clanking of which could be heard in a magical way. For this reason, depictions of this god are relatively rare. In our piece, the god is identified by the curved sickle knife. The attribution is further strengthened by the ouroboros winding around the handle, which emphasizes the connection with time. Our depiction likely goes back to an unknown engraved model, according to which a gem cutter on the Bay of Naples carved our cameo from a shell. Enclosed we show an illustration of the god from Dr. Vollmer’s Dictionary of the Mythology of All Peoples, Stuttgart 1874, p. 407, which can also be viewed online. The mythological depiction is held by a simple gold setting. We have added a matching gold chain to the pendant, which came to us from London.

Estimación:€790

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