ROMAN GOLD RING FROM 1st CENTURY AD ANCIENT JEWELRY MERCURY GEMSTONE ANTIQUE
1st century AD. A gold finger ring with twisted wire hoop supporting an oval-shaped bezel with a border of granulated beads, set with a cut and polished carnelian gemstone with intaglio Mercury standing left, caduceus in right arm, coin purse (marsupium) in left.
See Chadour, A.B., Rings. The Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Leeds, 1994, item 208, for type; cf. The British Museum, museum number 1923,0401.167, for a similar Hermes/Mercury stone; cf. Roberts, P., Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, London, 2013, p. 268, for an almost identical depiction of Mercury on a Roman gemstone.2.17 grams, 19.98mm overall, 18.33mm internal diameter (approximate size British L, USA 5 3/4, Europe 11.24, Japan 10) (3/4").
Ex Mr L.W. in 2005; formerly in an old private Israeli collection, since the 1990s.