Cameo with Marc Aurel and Faustina minor as Iuppiter and Iuno

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The cameo with Marc Aurel and Faustina minor as Iuppiter and Iuno .

The cameo with Marc Aurel and Faustina minor as Iuppiter and Iuno , or Jupiter cameo for short , is a large cameo and is now part of the antique collection of the Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart . It shows the Roman emperor Marc Aurel and his wife Faustina minor as the supreme pair of gods of the Roman pantheon , Jupiter and Juno .

The cameo with Marc Aurel and Faustina minor as Iuppiter and Iuno is both the largest and the most important object in the collection of ancient glyptics in the Stuttgart State Museum. The stone with a height of 14.6 centimeters and a width of 10.6 centimeters is made of the semi-precious stone sardonyx . The place of manufacture was presumably the city of Rome, this cameo was probably court art. The stone is built up in three layers in different colors. The artist, who has demonstrated great technical ability, has carved out the skin parts of the figures, the furniture, the staff and the lower parts of the clothing of the female figure from the second, white layer, from the top, heavily spotted brown Layer most of the clothing as well as Jupiter's head hair and wreath. In terms of color, the work of art is similar to the Great Eagle Cameo in the Berlin Collection of Antiquities .

Shown on the right is Jupiter enthroned on a chair. The head and lower body are shown in profile and point to the left, the upper body is rotated three-quarter view. His right arm is raised and holds a scepter as a divine attribute and sign of dignity, in his left hand he holds a bundle of lightning as a personal attribute . The tunic falls over the lower body and leaves the upper body free . Jupiter wears a laurel wreath on his curly head . Opposite him on the left side of the picture is Juno in a three-quarter view, the head is shown looking to the right in profile. The right arm falls sideways and grabs the robe, the left hand is raised to the left shoulder. In his left hand Juno is holding something that is difficult to see, possibly a pine branch, an attribute of the Magna Mater that Juno would also call the great mother of gods. She is chastely portrayed as matrona stolata . She wears a long tunic and a stole over it . The head and other parts of the body are covered by the palla , and she also wears a diadem . That shows the wearer as a member of the upper class, wife of a Roman citizen and just as a married woman, as a matron . Even if the couple was shown in the style of the gods, it is not them, but the imperial couple Marc Aurel and the younger Faustina, who are shown in an attitude that shows them to be removed from everything earthly. The scene symbolizes the ritually celebrated holy wedding of the pair of gods and thus has a religious reference. The piece is dated to the period between 170 and 185, i.e. to the last ten years of Marc Aurel's reign or to half a decade after his death. The interpretation of the gods as imperial couple is not without controversy, as there are no portraits. An identification with Septimius Severus and Julia Domna was also suggested , which should lead to a later dating to the beginning of the 3rd century.

The cameo has been known since 1598 at the latest, when it was described in the inventory of the Bavarian dukes. Probably in the course of the Thirty Years' War the piece came into the possession of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg as spoils of war . It stayed here until it came into the art trade as part of the sale of the Gothaer Kunstkammer after the Second World War . The sardonyx is now with the inventory number Arch 62/3 in the antique collection of the Landesmuseum Württemberg and has been presented since 2016 in the newly compiled “True Treasures” collection. The acquisition took place with the help of lottery funds.

literature

  • Marie-Louise Vollenweider: The Jupiter cameo. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1964.
  • Heike Schröder (editor): Art in the old castle. Theiss, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8062-1198-1 , p. 113.
  • Erika Zwierlein-Diehl : Antique gems and their afterlife. De Gruyter, Berlin and Boston 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-092040-6 , p. 207. Google Books
  • Martin Kemkes and Claudia Sarge (adaptation): Faces of Power. Images of emperors in Rome and on the Limes. Exhibition catalog Limesmuseum Aalen. Theiss, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-8062-2262-3 , p. 69.
  • Matthias Puhle and Gabriele Köster (editors): Otto the Great and the Roman Empire. Empire from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Exhibition catalog Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7954-2491-6 , catalog number I.44.

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