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Brooches Roman era – overview

1st-3rd century, from the Villa Borghese, Italy;
carnelian engraved with Aphrodite and Eros

In the British museum https://www.britishmuseum.org

brooch, silver, Roman, 5 BCE–16 CE [read more]

pair of silver gilded brooches, 1-30 CE, Trier [read more]

Zdjęcie

Gold brooch with a portrait of Emperor Lucius Verus. An intaglio is carved on the back side of the crystal quartz cabochon, then painted with gold as the background for an image.
2nd century https://hermitagemuseum.org

3rd C “brooch”, Roman time Slovakia [sewn-on ornament]

[read more]

Large fibula with a cameo portrait of Plautilla
Roman, Late 2nd – early 3rd century
Gold, agate, garnet and glass; Dimensions: 9.2 cm x 8.1 cm
https://phoenixancientart.com

Early Imperial, ca 1-25 CE, gold brooch (sew-on) with carnelian intaglio with an image of an eagle. [Hellenistic in style]
Cleveland Art Museum Inv. no. 1977.13

Brooch of Crepereia Tryphaena, 2nd-3rd century burial of young woman [read more]

Vallerano necropolis, Tomb 2, 2nd century burial of young woman [read more]

© Photo Massimo Gaudio
©Museo Nazionale Romano, Il Medagliere, Rome, 414061
© Photo Massimo Gaudio

3rd century jewelry from Syria [read more]

Antiquities Collection of the State Museums in Berlin
© BNF Paris

3rd C golden brooch with Minerva cameo, made in Dura Europos, Syria
This brooch was confiscated to smugglers in the USA. https://www.justice.gov

https://www.pinterest.it/pin/328692472784264357/

Gold necklace and pendant with agate cameo portraying Minerva, second half of 3rd century. Found at a burial site in Goito along the Via Postumia and currently at the Mantova Archaeological Museum.
More pictures >> https://www.instagram.com/p/CP0EmR-jTtJ/?img_index=2

3rd-4th C brooch from Dura Europos, Syria
[read more]

Sold on auction Gorny & Mosch GmbH 1998  https://www.gmcoinart.de/gm-katalog-198.pdfx
Large golden fibula with garnet engraved with the portrait of a hellenistic king with diadem. The front-medaillon which has a very rich decor made of golden wires is from the 1st century B.C. while the back and the needle seems to be from Roman Imperial Times (perhaps 4th century A.D.)
The gold frame is 2nd-4th century most likely, despite of the auction description.
47,20 g; 4,9 x 4,4 cm

[Thanks to @selflibrarian for a help]


Roman brooch with cameo portrait of a woman
3rd century CE; from Italy; Lazio
Materials: Gold and shell; overall: 3.8 cm
http://museums.fivecolleges.edu

Cameo portrait of a woman
Gold and shell, 3rd century CE
Purchased in Athens, 1926
Photograph Petegorsky/Gipe
MH 1926.4.C.I
http://antiquity.mtholyoke.edu/node/89/index.html

Brooch with a glass cameo, Roman, 2nd-3rd C

https://www.antique-brooches.com A Roman gold and glass cameo brooch Circa 2nd-3rd Century A.D. The oval layered blue and amber glass cameo carved with a sleeping dog, set in a gold mount framed by a band of globular and granule applied decoration with beaded wire outer border, the reverse with a hinged pin and a collection number M186 in red paint, 3.2cm wide. Sold for £3,750 inc. premium at Bonhams in 2016

A Sardonyx Cameo of Caligula and Antonia Minor
https://www.antique-brooches.com/roman-cameo-brooches/

“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. 1 1/3 by 1 1/2 in. 3.3 by 3.8 cm. 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. […]
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). Sold for 425,000 USD at Sothebys in 2013″

Brooch with a portrait of Colchian man, gold and carnelian intaglio. Village Kldeeti, Zestafoni Municipality, Region Imereti, Georgia; 2nd century
in GNM

Georgia, Makho, 1st-2nd century
Kept at Batumi Archaeological Museum.
https://www.facebook.com/BatumiArchaelogicalMuseum

©British Museum

Very unusual shape as for Roman brooch – rectangular emerald with pearls on the sides, set in gold. Brooch is small, is 3 cm long. Dated at 2nd-3rd century.

In British Museum

“Catalogue of the jewellery, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the departments of antiquities, British Museum” pdf

Below – a pin or hair ornament, gold hung with emeralds; 1st-4th century
Height: 5.2 cm, Width: 1.2 cm, Depth: 0.6 cm
V&A collection Inv. no. 8802-1863

A Tutulus Fibula on sale the Cahn Gallery [link]

W. 3.3 cm. Gold, bronze, carnelian. Roman, 4th-5th cent. A.D.

“The high-domed oval of the brooch’s outer face is fashioned of gold sheets, its overall surface ornamented with superimposed rows of wave-like scales in fine filigree. At its centre, a plain polished carnelian stone is mounted in a high-collared setting, bordereded at its base with a pattern of dotted circles. The whole is attached, with its edges folded over, to a flat bronze plate to whose underside is fused a coiled hinge assembly, sprung pin and catch for fixation to a garment. Intact; bronze plate lightly encrusted.

Provenance: Formerly priv. coll., Germany, 1970’s-1980’s.”

A TUTULUS FIBULA. W. 3.3cm. Gold, bronze, carnelian. The oval brooch is made of sheet gold and adorned with scale-like gold wire mesh surrounding a central carnelian.
Formerly priv. coll. Germany, 1970s-1980s.
Roman, 4th–5th cent. A.D. CHF 4,600

https://files.artbutler.com/file/1335/115569fdbd0e4b4e.pdf

https://files.artbutler.com/file/1335/baabfbe43d464557.pdf

[Tutulus Fibula – the circular disc plate was extended upwards to form a cone]

Tangendorf disc brooch, 3rd C, Germany

In the Hamburg Archaeological Museum https://artsandculture.google.com

“Found near Tangendorf, Toppenstedt, Harburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The front of the elaborately crafted garment fibula is decorated with a rear-facing four-legged animal, probably a dog or a deer.

The fibula is a multilayered structure. Its face consists of a very thin fire gilded and contoured silver disc, having a diameter of 58 mm. This is fixed by three silver rivet pins to an identically sized, 3 mm thick copper plate and together with this on a stronger silver plate. The rear plate, 78 mm in diameter, is significantly larger. On its rear, the pin was mounted.
The reverse of the front plate was filled with a now whitish green mix of tin, lead and traces of copper in order to support the sensitive friction work and to prevent the pressing of the driven ornaments. But the tin components of the filler have damaged some of the metal parts of the decoration due to allotropic processes forced by low temperatures during long term storage in the soil (tin pest).

The decoration consists of a quadrupedal animal walking to the right, with the animals head facing backwards. It has two ears and a protruding tongue. Around its neck it wears a collar shaped ornament. The legs are positioned under the body to accommodate the round shape of the disc. The background is decorated with irregularly distributed impressions, imitating a granulation. The scene is framed by two ribbed bands, which are enclosed by an ornamental wreath and another ribbed band. Around the body of the animal there are three rosette shaped rivet heads. The body of the animal has a large defect caused by the degenerated tin filling. Some of the protruding edges of the rear mounting plate are broken away. Beneath the copper plate, residual amounts of organic material were found, which were interpreted as ivory. Due to typological comparisons of the ornaments, the fibula was dated to circa 300 AD.” [wiki]