Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18206

    Intaglio seals

    Date
    late 18th century
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Technique
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Five gold mounted oval cornelian and chalcedony intaglios. Each is carved with antique profiles, representing Euclid, Thales, Archimedes, Aristides and Priam, and inscribed in Greek lettering. Together with their auction tags and blue velvet-lined presentation box.

    The engraving of gemstones was a luxury art form in the ancient world, and intaglios were highly valued throughout the eighteenth century, their rarity and scarcity even encouraging the creation of imitations or fakes. These intaglios come from a collection of such imitations, commissioned by Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski of Poland (1754–1833), who encouraged the belief that they were in fact ancient.

    Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski (1754–1833) of Poland was not a Fellow of the Royal Society.
    Object history
    This collection was sold after the death of Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski at a Christie’s auction in 1839 (April 29–May 21) and purchased by the Royal Society ('Object biographies and interdisciplinarity' AM Roos, Notes & Records, vol 73, no 3).
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Poland
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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