Lot 42 Dα

This rare glass cameo is based on a famous prototype dating from the 1st century B.C., namely a fragmentary carved sardonyx cameo from the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692-1779) that has been housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston since 1921. The stone originally became well-known when it was published in circa 1760 by Johann Joachim Winckelmann under the title "The Tears of Achilles" in the catalogue of the important intaglio collection of Baron Philipp von Stosch. The design was highly influential upon Neoclassical intaglio carvers. Although Winckelmann originally interpreted the depiction as a scene from Homer's Iliad, most people nowadays follow the interpretation of the archaeologist John Davidson Beazley, who - upon comparison with ancient carved sarcophagi - identified the scene as Orestes and his friend Pylades from play "Iphigenia in Aulis" by Euripides.