Masterpieces in Miniature: An Introduction of Ancient Greek & Roman Engraved Gems

Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, will be coming to Princeton in the spring as the 2025-2026 Program in the Ancient World Fellow.

From the  Bronze Age through Late Antiquity, gem engraving (aka glyptic) was a highly prized craft, not only for the skill of its practitioners, but also for the great value placed on the materials employed – cornelian, amethyst, rock crystal, chalcedony, jasper, and, eventually, emerald, garnet, and sapphire – often imported from distant lands.  Although often overlooked today as modern art historical taxonomies have privileged architecture, sculpture, and painting, gems in antiquity functioned as markers of personal identity, status, divine protection, and cultural currency. This lecture introduces the materials and techniques of ancient Greek and Roman gem engraving, what we can recover about the lives of the carvers and others “behind the stones”, the wide range of iconography and differing functions of intaglios and cameos, and something of their continuing allure in the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and Enlightenment to today.

Read more about Kenneth on the Getty Museum website.