gems, glyptic, engraved gems, garnet, Rome, Roman period

The Roman gem engraver Gnaios, known from six signed works, cut this exquisite garnet around 30–20 BC. He masterfully exploits the thin, flat gemstone to depict a youthful, athletic oil pourer in profile, anointing his body with oil. The motif and the sculptural rendering of the trained body reflect a stylistic tradition from Greek art of the 4th century BC, which survived in Roman vase painting. The “Oil Pourer,” De Souda, and the garnet in Baltimore—as well as numerous other intaglios and glass pastes of a similar statue type—seem to reinterpret a retrospective view and may have originated earlier than Hellenistic statue copies. Therefore, the question of the Greek prototype must be reconsidered.