A Sardonyx Cameo of Caligula and Antonia Minor, Roman Imperial, Julio-Claudian, circa A.D. 37-41

finely carved with the portrait busts of Caligula and Antonia Minor, the young man wearing a tunic and toga, his head turned slightly to his left, his hair falling in crescentic locks over the forehead and surmounted by a laurel wreath, Antonia wearing a tunic and mantle drawn over her head as a veil, her head turned slightly to her right, her wavy hair parted in the center and bound in a diadem; the gold mount probably mid-19th Century.

Carlo Trebi, Rome, by 1831
Ignazio Vescovali (1770-1850), 20 Piazza di Spagna, Rome, by 1834
Félix Bienaimé Feuardent (1819-1907), Paris
Feuardent family collection, Paris (Hôtel Drouot, Boisgirard & Associés, Ancienne Collection Feuardent: bijoux – camées – intailles - objets de parure et montres, March 26th, 2004, no. 12, illus.)
Phoenix Ancient Art, Geneva, acquired at the above sale
acquired by the present owner from the above in 2008

Eduard Gerhard, "Monumenti gemmarii scoperti sin dal 1829," Bulletino dell’ Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, January 1831, p. 112, Centuria II, no. 79 (plaster cast listed as: "Augusto e Livia; cammeo presso il negoziante Carlo Trebi")
Tommaso Cades, Impronte di monumenti gemmarj tornati in luce dal 1829 in poi. Centurie I-IV, Rome, [1834?], p. 12, Centuria II, no. 79 (plaster cast listed as: "Augusto e Livia; cammeo presso il negoziante Vescovali")
Paul Delaroche, Henriquel Dupont, Charles Lenormant, and Achille Colas, Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique, vol. 2, Paris, 1843, p. 10, cat. no. 2, pl. VI.2, as Augustus and Livia
Giornale ligustico di archeologia, storia e letteratura, vol. 5, 1878, p. 521, note
Wolf-Rüdiger Megow, Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus, Berlin, 1987, p. 187-188, cat. no. A 65, pl. 14,10 (photograph of Cades plaster cast), as Caligula and Antonia Minor
Phoenix Ancient Art, Geneva, Crystal 2, New York, 2008, no. 11, illus.

 

 

Shallow chip to background above and to the left of the female bust, very small chip to edge of cameo around the 4 o'clock position above female bust’s proper left shoulder mostly hidden by gold mount, noses rubbed particularly that of male bust, very small chips on male bust’s proper right brow ridge and center of upper lip, very small chip under proper left nostril of female bust, cameo not examined outside of mount.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This cameo is first recorded with certainty in 1831 in a published catalogue of plaster casts of ancient gems compiled by Eduard Gerhard for the bulletin of the Istituto di corrispondenza archeologica in Rome, the predecessor of the German Archaeological Institute. The artisan responsible for executing the cast was Tommaso Cades (1772-1840), a Roman gem-engraver whom the Institute had hired to carry out a massive encyclopedic record of ancient gems known to be in existence at the time (see E. Zwierlein-Diehl, Antike Gemmen und ihr Nachleben, Berlin and New York, 2007, pp. 284-285). The complete set comprising thousands of casts is kept at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome and fills 78 volumes, the 75th of which contains the present cameo as no. IV C 300 (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rome, neg. no. 5149). The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn owns a reduced edition of the Cades collection of casts; we are grateful to Dr. Erika Zwierlein-Diehl for confirming that a cast numbered II,79 (i.e. Gerhard’s number) in the University’s edition of the Cades collection reproduces the present cameo.

The 1831 published catalogue entry describes the cameo as depicting “Augusto e Livia” and specifies that it was then in the hands of an otherwise unknown Italian art dealer named Carlo Trebi. A few years later, probably in 1834, in a small undated catalogue published by Cades himself to supplement the 1831 version, the stone is said to be in the possession of Ignazio Vescovali (1770-1850), one of the major art dealers of his time who specialized in ancient gems and other antiquities (see T. Ceccarini and A. Uncini, “Antiquari a Roma nel primo Ottocento: Ignazio e Luigi Vescovali,” Bollettino - Monumenti, musei e gallerie pontificie, vol. 10, 1990, pp. 115-185, Michaelis Stephen L. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, New Haven, 2006). His name is best remembered today as the one given to a Greek original statue of Athena lost to posterity, but known from several Roman marble copies (W. Schürmann, “Der Typus Athena Vescovali und seine Umbildungen,” Antike Plastik, vol. 27, 2000, pp. 37 ff., pls. 20-49).

Napoleon Bonaparte's testament, opened at his death in 1821, records a gold snuffbox decorated with an ancient cameo of Augustus and Livia in "agate d'onyx," "le seul qui existe" (Marquis de Monchenu, La captivité de Saint-Hélène, Paris, 1894, p. 321, no. 14; F. Masson, Napoléon chez lui: la journée de l'empereur aux Tuileries, Paris, 1906, p. 348, no. 8). He bequeathed this snuffbox, along with 32 others, to his son Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), who spent the last years of his life in exile in Italy and is known for his activities as an amateur archaeologist (M. Gregori, Luciano Bonaparte: le sue collezioni d'arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia, 1804-1840, Rome, 1995).

For a related sardonyx cameo showing a Julio-Claudian couple, originally in the collection of Count Tyszkiewicz in Rome, sold at auction in Paris by Feuardent in 1898, and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 98.754), see Megow, op. cit., p. 187, no. A 64, pl. 14,9 (http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/cameo-with-portrait-busts-of-an-imperial-julio-claudian-couple-186401).