Über die Bildnisse des Aristoteles und des Platon

Abstract

Greeks and Romans wore intaglio stones in finger rings and used them as seals, and in the first century BC the habit spread of multiplying ring stones in cheap glass. These glass pastes, barely ten to fifteen millimetres across, unprepossessing in material, often marred by casting faults and laborious for an unpractised eye, lie largely unregarded in museums. The study grew out of the task given to the author at the Munich State Coin Collection in 1950, to put the gems and glass pastes of the Arndt collection back in order after their wartime evacuation; coin dies are gems cut in metal. It holds Studniczka's argument for the identification of the Aristotle portrait usual today to be untenable, as Jongkees independently concluded in 1960, and points to the glass pastes as a means of proof so far ignored.

This summary was produced automatically from the digitised full text and has not been checked by the editors.

Suggested citation

Kraft, Konrad: Über die Bildnisse des Aristoteles und des Platon. In: Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 13 (1963), pp. 7–50, Tf.1-6.

Subject tags

Greek world Roman Empire Iconography Research survey Seals and tokens