Roman Glass Intaglio of Actaeon Attacked by His Hounds

Roman, Late Republican to Early Imperial period. An oval intaglio of translucent honey-amber glass, small enough to sit on a fingertip, showing a hunter turning to face his own pack. It was likely cast from a mold taken from an engraved hardstone, so the glass carries over the carver's composition. Held to the light, it glows like a costlier gem. The youth stands nude and braced, with a curved implement swung back behind his head (perhaps the lagobolon, the throwing stick used in hare hunting). A mantle wrapped around his left forearm serves as a makeshift shield. One hound rears up to set its forepaws against his thigh, a gesture that might pass for affection if the story were less well known. A small figure stands off to one side, likely Diana. A slender zigzag between them may be her bow. Ovid tells the tale in the third book of the Metamorphoses. Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus, wandered at noon into the shaded valley of Gargaphie and came upon the goddess bathing among her nymphs. With no arrows within reach, she flung water in his face, and antlers followed. His hounds, led by Melampus and keen-scented Ichnobates, then ran down a stag they no longer knew as their master. On a signet the myth acquires a sly edge. A seal is itself an instrument of recognition, pressed into wax to declare its owner, and this one perhaps doubled as a pocket parable on the price of an unguarded glance. Roman workshops of the late Republic and early Empire produced glass gems in great numbers, which brought the engraver's repertoire to a far wider clientele. Pliny the Elder judged no fraud more lucrative than gems counterfeited in glass. A paste of this kind, however, made no secret of its nature and asked only to be set in a ring and worn. Item # 205247

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