Intaglio rings full#
Intaglio rings professional#

In the United States, the word 'seal' is sometimes assigned to a facsimile of the seal design (in monochrome or color), which may be used in a variety of contexts including architectural settings, on flags, or on official letterheads. Some jurisdictions consider rubber stamps or specified signature-accompanying words such as 'seal' or 'L.S.' (abbreviation of locus sigilli, 'place of the seal') to be the legal equivalent of, i.e., an equally effective substitute for, a seal. These 'pendent' seal impressions dangled below the documents they authenticated, to which the attachment tag was sewn or otherwise attached (single-sided seals were treated in the same way). Most seals have always given a single impression on an essentially flat surface, but in medieval Europe two-sided seals with two matrices were often used by institutions or rulers (such as towns, bishops and kings) to make two-sided or fully three-dimensional impressions in wax, with a 'tag', a piece of ribbon or strip of parchment, running through them. The process is essentially that of a mould. However engraved gems were often carved in relief, called cameo in this context, giving a 'counter-relief' or intaglio impression when used as seals.

This will not be the case if paper is embossed from behind, where the matrix and impression read the same way, and both matrix and impression are in relief. The design on the impression will reverse (be a mirror-image of) that of the matrix, which is especially important when script is included in the design, as it very often is. In most traditional forms of dry seal the design on the seal matrix is in intaglio (cut below the flat surface) and therefore the design on the impressions made is in relief (raised above the surface). If the impression is made purely as a relief resulting from the greater pressure on the paper where the high parts of the matrix touch, the seal is known as a dry seal in other cases ink or another liquid or liquefied medium is used, in another color than the paper. The seal-making device is also referred to as the seal matrix or die the imprint it creates as the seal impression (or, more rarely, the sealing). The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interference with a package or envelope by applying a seal which had to be broken to open the container (hence the modern English verb 'to seal', which implies secure closing without an actual wax seal).

Intaglio rings professional#

Provenance: Property of a professional Ancient art and jewelry expert previously with a London gallery initially from a private British collection formed in the 1980s.Present-day impression of a Late Bronze Age sealДЄ seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Size: D: 20.68mm / US: 11 / UK: V1/2 4g. The social dynamics of Roman imperial imagery. For more information, see Russell, A., HellstrГ¶m, M. Hence, it is not inconceivable that this ring might have belonged to a praetorian guard.

Intaglio rings full#

The praetorian scorpion has long been recognised as a reference to the Emperor Tiberius, who was born under the astrological sign of the Scorpio, and who first concentrated praetorian guard in its own camp in Rome, thus giving it full corporate identity (Russell and HellstrГ¶m 2020, 135). The scorpion was the emblem of the Praetorian Guard, the Roman emperor's personal army elite unit. The intaglio portrays the river god Tiberinus as suggested by the similarities in the iconography of this intaglio with a large statue in the Louvre depicting Tiberinus in a reclining position, as a victor crowned with bay, holding in one hand an oar and in the other a cornucopia (). A scorpion is visible on the left-hand side. A well-preserved, wearable gold ring with a circular band, flared shoulder, and an oval bezel with inset black gemstone with intaglio depicting a reclining male figure in left profile holding a cornucopia with his left hand.