This intaglio is set in an 18 karat gold rin
The art of glyptics, or carving images on colored precious stones, is probably one of the oldest known to humanity. Intaglios, gems with an incised design, were made as early as the fourth and third millennia B.C. in Mesopotamia and the Aegean Islands. They exhibit a virtuosity of execution that suggests an old and stable tradition rooted in the earliest centuries. The tools required for carving gems were simple: a wheel with a belt-drive and a set of drills. Abrasives were necessary since the minerals used were too hard for a metal edge. A special difficulty of engraving intaglios, aside from their miniature size, was that the master had to work with a mirror-image in mind.
The engravers of the 18th Century, no doubt inspired by the requirements of their patrons, had a very lively imagination when it came to depicting the ancient Greek myths. This charming intaglio shows a reclining woman, leaning on rocks, holding a cornucopia with her left band and a large scorpion in her right. An urn seems to balance on her feet. The cornucopia is an ancient symbol of fortune and prosperity (horn of plenty), and was a symbol of the goddess Fortuna; whom this lovely lady may well be. The artist bas given the delightful impression of an outdoor scene, of a deity engaged in performing a bit of magic communing with a scorpion, which she seems about to place back into the urn. In this intaglio we see the rich imagination of the 18th.Century blended with the style of ancient Rome and Greece in a ring that will always be a lively conversation piece.