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Various Properties (Lots 56-66)
Lot 65

A Hellenistic terracotta roundel with Alexander Gorgoneion

23 June – 7 July 2025, 12:00 BST
Online, London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,792 inc. premium

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A Hellenistic terracotta roundel with Alexander Gorgoneion

Greek South Italy, circa 3rd Century B.C.
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.

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