This intaglio is set in an 18 karat gold ring.

The art of glyptics, or carving 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 BC in Mesopotamia and Aegean Islands. They display 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.
Dionysus (Bacchus) was the god of the vine, of wine and mystic ecstasy. His cult was prolific throughout the Mediterranean, and may have been known as far as India since it was believed he travelled to that distant country. His worship was manifested in tumultuous processions in which the spirits of earth and of fecundity appeared, their likenesses evoked by masks. This charming intaglio shows Dionysus standing jauntily, holding a large bunch of grapes in his left hand and a spear in his right. A pillar is seen at left which the god seems to have just been leaning upon before moving off; perhaps to another Bacchanalian feast!