An ancient Roman glass intaglio gem, banded blue and green, carved with a gilded figure of a maenad carrying the thyrsos.
Ca. 2nd – 3rd century AD.
Maenads (also Bacchantes) were the frenzied female members of the retinue of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine and revelry (Roman: Bacchus). Maenads, literally “the raving ones,” were often depicted in Greek art as wild and ecstatic women who indulged in sex, violence, and intoxication.
Formerly in a New Jersey private collection.
$2,500
