Alexas (gem cutter)

Alexas ( ancient Greek Άλεξᾶς ) was a Greek gem cutter who worked in the 1st century BC. Was probably active in Rome . His sons and students were the gem cutters Kointos and Aulos .

Of the stones signed by Alexas, the fragment of a cameo cut from an onyx can be safely assigned to him, showing a sea monster and an oar. The cameo is in the collection of the British Museum . A stone in the Berlin Antikensammlung is also assigned to Alexas because of its stylistic similarities, although it does not have the artist's signature. On this stone Heracles is shown killing a sea monster. A carnelian also in the Antikensammlung Berlin with the signature of Alexas, on which an angry bull is depicted, is considered a forgery.

literature

Otto Rossbach : Alexas 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, column 1463.
Attilio Stazio: Alexas . In: Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (ed.): Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale , Volume 1. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1958.
Christoph Müller: Alexas (II) . In: Rainer Vollkommer (Hrsg.): Künstlerlexikon der Antike . Over 3800 artists from three millennia. Nikol, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-937872-53-7 , p. 23.

Remarks

^ Marie-Louise Vollenweider : The stone cutting art and its artists in the late Republican and Augustan times . Bruno Grimm Verlag, Baden-Baden, 1966. p. 40.

personal data
SURNAME	Alexas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Άλεξᾶς (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Greek gem cutter
DATE OF BIRTH	1st century BC BC or 1st century
DATE OF DEATH	1st century BC BC or 1st century

[1] Marie-Louise Vollenweider : The stone cutting art and its artists in the late Republican and Augustan times . Bruno Grimm Verlag, Baden-Baden, 1966. p. 40.