A ROMAN SARDONYX CAMEO PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS - photo 1
A ROMAN SARDONYX CAMEO PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS - photo 2

A ROMAN SARDONYX CAMEO PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS

Lot 1
11.10.2023 18:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 2 107 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1027471
Lot 1 | A ROMAN SARDONYX CAMEO PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS
Estimate value
$ 200 000 – 300 000
A ROMAN SARDONYX CAMEO PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS

CIRCA 41-54 A.D.; THE MOUNT ATTRIBUTED TO DANIEL MIGNOT, AUGSBURG, CIRCA 1593-1596

2 7/8 in. (7.2 cm.) long, the cameo

3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm.) long, the mount





Provenance

Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel (1586-1646), Arundel House, London; thence by descent to his wife, Aletheia Talbot Howard (1585-1654), Arundel House, London; thence by gift to her son, Henry Frederick Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel (1608-1652), Arundel House, London; thence by descent to his son, Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk (1628-1684), Arundel House, London; thence by descent to his widow, Jane Bickerton Howard (1643-1693), Arundel House, London.

Henry Mordant, 2nd Earl of Peterborough (1621-1697), Drayton House, Northamptonshire, acquired from the above, by 1690; thence by descent to his daughter, Lady Mary Mordant (1659-1705), Drayton House, Northamptonshire; thence by descent to her husband, Sir John Germain (1650-1718), Drayton House, Northamptonshire; thence by descent to his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Germain (1680-1769), Knole House, Kent; thence by descent to her great-niece, Mary Beauclerk (1743-1812), England, given to her on the occasion of her marriage to Charles Spencer (1740-1820), 1762.

George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (1739-1817), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, gifted from the above, circa 1765; thence by descent to his son, George Spencer-Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough (1766-1840), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire; thence by descent to his son, George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough (1793–1857), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire; thence by descent to his son, John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough (1822-1883), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.

The Marlborough Gems: Being a Collection of Works in Cameo and Intaglio Formed by George, Third Duke of Marlborough, Christie's, London, 28 June-1 July 1875, lot 422.

David Bromilow (1809-1898), Bitteswell Hall, Leicestershire, acquired from the above; thence by descent to his daughter, Julia Harriet Mary Jary, Bitteswell Hall, Leicestershire.

The Marlborough Gems: A Collection of Works in Cameo and Intaglio Formed by George, Third Duke of Marlborough, Purchased by the Late David Bromilow, Esq., of Bitteswell Hall, Lutterworth, the Property of Mrs. Jary, Christie's, London, 26-29 June 1899, lot 422.

C. Davis, acquired from the above (according to auctioneer’s book).

Probably collected by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827–1905) or Baron Gustave Samuel de Rothschild (1829-1911), Paris; thence by descent to Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949).

Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation in Paris after May 1940 (ERR no. R 2369).

Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria, and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 28 June 1946 (MCCP no. 1371/17).

Returned to France on 11 July 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.

By descent to the present owners.



Literature

18th century manuscript of the Arundel Collection, no. D9 (1), as “Caput Britanici laureatum.”

A. Fountaine, The Arundel Cabinet, London, 1731, p. 8, case D, no. 9.

C.W. King, “Notices of Collections of Glyptic Art Exhibited by the Archaeological Institute in June, 1861,” The Archaeological Journal, vol. 19, 1862, p. 19, no. 301.

The Marlborough Gems, manuscript album and photographs, 1875, pls. 10.9-10.10.

N. Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems: Being a Collection of Works in Cameo and Intaglio Formed by George, Third Duke of Marlborough, London, 1870, p. 72, no. 422.

C. Newton-Robinson, "The Marlborough Gems," The Nineteenth Century, vol. 46, August 1899, p. 254.

D. Scarisbrick, “The Arundel Gem Cabinet,” Apollo, vol. 144, August 1996, pp. 45-46, fig. 1.

J. Boardman, et al., The Marlborough Gems, Formerly at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, London, 2009, p. 58, no. 61; pp. 316-317.



Exhibited

London, Archaeological Institute, Exhibition of Works of Glyptic Art, June 1861.
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