Cylindrical seal, slightly flared. The decoration... - Lot 30 - De Baecque et Associés

Lot 30
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Estimation :
3500 - 4000 EUR
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Result : 5 200EUR
Cylindrical seal, slightly flared. The decoration... - Lot 30 - De Baecque et Associés
Cylindrical seal, slightly flared. The decoration consists of three registers separated by two horizontal lines. In the center a lion attacking a bull. Upper register: two eagles on the left. Register lower register: a fish on the right. Pierced. Achaemenid art, 5th century BC. Chalcedony. Diam. 1.7 cm H. 1.7 cm ES Provenance: collection of a French diplomat active in the Near and Middle East during the Roaring Twenties. The seal is known by a photograph dating from the 1960s. Transmitted by descent. Extremely fine engraving of the purest Achaemenid style. The representations of fights between lions and bulls are particularly recurrent in Achaemenid art (see for example the reliefs of the Apadana in Persepolis). These scenes of fighting and killing These scenes of fighting and killing are interpreted as embodying the earthly cycle in all its dramaturgy, notably through the creative destruction. The scene presented on our stamp fully corroborates this type of cosmic interpretation. It would be necessary to recognize in these animals and their action, the symbols of the element-milieu in which they live (water, sky and earth). in which they live (water, sky and earth). The superimposition in a single image of these three elements-milieu would thus give us a totalizing conception of the world order of the Achaemenids.
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