Gemma Augustea - Creation and Characteristics

Creation and Characteristics

The Gemma Augustea is a low-relief cameo gem cut from a double-layered Arabian onyx stone. One layer is white, while the other is bluish-brown. The painstaking method by which the stone was cut allowed minute detail with sharp contrast between the images and background, also allowing for a great deal of shadow play. The size of the gem also made for easier manipulation and a grander scene. It stands 7½ inches tall with a width of 9 inches and an average thickness of ½ inch.

It is commonly agreed that the gem cutter who created Gemma Augustea was either Dioscurides or one of his disciples. Dioscurides was Caesar Augustus’ favorite gem cutter, and his work and copies of it are seen from all over the ancient Roman world. The gemma was purported to have been created c. AD 10–20, although some scholars believe it to have been created decades later because of certain interpretations of the depicted scene.

If Dioscurides, or cutters following his example, made it, the gemma was probably made in the court of Caesar Augustus. At some time in antiquity it moved to Byzantium, perhaps after Constantine I had officially moved the capital of the empire there. It is important to note that Augustus, though fully accepting and encouraging cult worship of the emperor outside of Rome, especially in the provinces, did not allow himself to be worshiped as a god inside Rome. If this gem were to have been made during his lifetime (he died in AD 14), it would have to have been made to be sent to a respected family in a Roman province or client kingdom. Either that, or the gem was made after Augustus’ death, which could alter the identity of one or more of the portraits. Another viewpoint is that the gem does portray Augustus as a god, but the gem was cut specifically for a close friend or relative perhaps in Rome who would have been the only one to know of it.

Ages passed during which the whereabouts of the gemma is undocumented, though it still remained relatively intact. The gemma turned up in 1246 in the treasury of the Basilique St-Sernin, Toulouse. Later, in 1533, Francis I of France appropriated it and moved it to Paris, where it soon disappeared around 1590. Not long thereafter it was sold for 12,000 gold pieces to Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor. During the 17th century, it was set in German gold. This setting shows that the gem must have been damaged, the upper left side being broken with at least one other figure missing, probably before Rudolph II bought it, but definitely before 1700. The gemma now resides in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.