Cameo with the Head of a Satyr

probably Italian

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 540

The tradition of representing satyrs on intaglios and cameos is an ancient one, stretching back at least as far as sixth-century Greece. This cameo, with its forced perspective and strong, unidealized image, belongs to a rather late stage in the evolution of the representation of the sylvan deity. It was probably made in Italy, the chief center of cameo production in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, as it is today.

[Clare Vincent, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1984, p. 189, no. 108]

Cameo with the Head of a Satyr, Sardonyx with gold mount, probably Italian

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