Getty Museum

Pair of Disk Pendant Earrings with a Figure of Eros

Date

225–175 B.C.

Medium

Gold and pearls

Culture

Greek

Department

Jewelry

Institution

Getty Museum

Pair of earrings, each fashioned from more than a hundred components. Construction was organized into three segments: bull’s head, rosette, and Erote pendant, connected and stabilized by a hoop formed from gold wire. The bull’s head at the top is constructed from two repoussé halves attached at their lower edge to a collar decorated with beaded and block-twisted wire. Beneath this collar is set a pearl, itself supported from below by a similarly decorated collar. The pendant figures of fluttering winged Erotes were formed by soldering two sheet-gold halves together. With granulated bandoliers and golden cloaks draping behind, the pudgy figures hold ritual offering plates in one hand and upraised torches in the other. Every element has been individually soldered onto the figures. The Erotes are suspended from gold rosette disks consisting of rings of decorative wires (strip twisted and block twisted) with the central flower formed by gold sheet cut into individual petals. The bull-head type of earring was introduced in the 3rd century B.C. and was popular in Egypt for several hundred years. The combination of bull-head, Eros, rosette and pearl is particularly opulent and bears equally rich iconographic associations with divine royalty. The pearl is especially rare, for pearls were only beginning to be imported into the Mediterranean from the Persian Gulf and India at this time, making this one of the earliest uses of pearls in ancient Greek jewelry.

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