Gemma Augustea

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Gemma Augustea, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
Gemma Augustea with numbers

The Gemma Augustea is a cut semi-precious stone from Roman antiquity. It consists of a two-layer Arab sardonyx and is 19 × 23 cm in size. The setting, a gold ring with ornamented opening on the back of the gem, is German and was made in the 17th century.

In the upper strip of the two-part image field, Emperor Augustus (No. 1), holding scepter and staff of augurs, is enthroned next to the personification of the Roma (No. 2). Between the heads of the two is the Capricorn (No. 9), Augustus' conceiving star. At the feet of the emperor is the eagle (No. 10), an attribute of Jupiter as a sign of the deification of the emperor. Emperor Augustus is crowned by the Oikumene (No. 3). On the right side you can see Okeanos, the World Stream (No. 5) and Italia (No. 6) with a cornucopia. Next to Roma is Germanicus (No. 8), the emperor's great-nephew, in officer's costume. On the left edge of the picture, his laurel-wreathed successor Tiberius (No. 7) climbs from a chariot driven by the goddess of victory Victoria (No. 4).

In the lower picture strip victorious Roman legionaries erect a tropaion (monument to victory), subjugated “barbarians” watch the scene. The semi-precious stone was probably worked after 10 AD in the workshop that the stone cutter Dioscurides had founded in Rome. The Gemma Augustea is one of the showpieces of the antique collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv.no. AS IXa 79).

literature

  • John Pollini : The Gemma Augustea: Ideology, Rhetorical Imagery, and the Construction of a Dynastic Narrative. In: Peter J. Holliday (Ed.): Narrative and Event in Ancient Art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-43013-5 , pp. 258-298.
  • Wilfried Seipel (Ed.): Masterpieces of the Antikensammlung (= short guide through the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Vol. 4). KHM, Kunsthistorisches Museum et al., Vienna et al. 2005, ISBN 3-85497-092-5 , p. 176 f.
  • Erika Zwierlein-Diehl : Antique gems and their afterlife. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019450-0 , pp. 149-153.

Web links

Commons : Gemma Augustea  - collection of images, videos and audio files