Live Auction 18768The Oliver Hoare Collection
A BYZANTINE GOLD BUCKLE
Lot 7

A BYZANTINE GOLD BUCKLE

CIRCA 7TH CENTURY AD

Closed25 October 2019

Price Realised

GBP 8,750

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A BYZANTINE GOLD BUCKLE
CIRCA 7TH CENTURY AD
The hook with a peacock engraved onto the square-shaped plate, the hoop and loop hinged onto an elongated and waisted plate, chip carved, punched and engraved with a double headed snake following the edge, surrounding a crocodile seen from above, two stylised dolphins and foliate design above, the reverse with three separately-cast loops for attachment
4in. (10.2 cm.) long; 65.4 grams

With Lennox Gallery, London, February 1999.

Specialist note

For a similar gilt copper-alloy example decorated with a crocodile enclosed by a double-headed snake, cf., C. Entwistle and N. Adams, Intelligible Beauty. Recent research on Byzantine jewellery, London, 2010, p. 21, no. 7; and for another example in gold cf., E. Garam, ‘Über die Beziehung der byzantinischen Goldschnallen und der awarenzeitlichen Pseudoschnallen’, in Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und der Steppe im 6.–7. Jahrhundert, Budapest/Naples/Rome, 2000, 222, fig. 3.1-3.