
A Hellenistic terracotta roundel with Alexander Gorgoneion
Sold for £1,792 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our European Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot

A Hellenistic terracotta roundel with Alexander Gorgoneion
18cm maximum diam
Footnotes
Provenance:
with Hurst Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 1998.
According to myth, when the Gorgon was slain by Perseus he mounted its head on his shield. This shield was then gifted by Athena to Achilles, and finally claimed by Alexander the Great from the Temple of Athena-Ilia at Troy. The roundel may have been intended to symbolise this legendary shield.
Such terracotta roundels served as oscilla, votive offerings designed to sway in the wind, and were in widespread production in southern Italy during the Hellenistic period. See M. L. Ferruzza, Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2016, p.206, no.59, for a comparable terracotta clipeus, and N. Yalouris, The Search for Alexander, Boston, 1980, p.152, no.96, for a further miniature Alexander Gorgoneion.