ROMANO-BRITISH MERCURY STATUETTE 1st-2nd century AD A bronze statuette or devotional figurine depicting a naked male with his weight on his right leg, his right arm extended, the left cradling a staff with a trefoil, the head is held erect, with his hair combed forward onto his forehead and a three-point crown above his brow, standing on a rectangular pedestal with a square platform, supported by four low feet. 58 grams, 92mm (4"). Fine condition, lower right arm absent. Provenance Property of an Essex gentleman; previously in an old English collection. Literature See Green, M.J. The Gods of Roman Britain, Princes Risborough, 2003 and Ross, A. Pagan Celtic Britain, London, 1974. Footnotes The figure bears a resemblance to depictions of Mercury with his caduceus in his left hand, such as the Gallo-Roman example in the Carnavalet Museum, Paris; the missing right hand may have held a sack of coins. Mercury was adopted into local Gallo-Roman and Romano-British religion where statuettes of the god were used as cult objects.
ROMANO-BRITISH MERCURY STATUETTE 1st-2nd century AD A bronze statuette or devotional figurine depicting a naked male with his weight on his right leg, his right arm extended, the left cradling a staff with a trefoil, the head is held erect, with his hair combed forward onto his forehead and a three-point crown above his brow, standing on a rectangular pedestal with a square platform, supported by four low feet. 58 grams, 92mm (4"). Fine condition, lower right arm absent. Provenance Property of an Essex gentleman; previously in an old English collection. Literature See Green, M.J. The Gods of Roman Britain, Princes Risborough, 2003 and Ross, A. Pagan Celtic Britain, London, 1974. Footnotes The figure bears a resemblance to depictions of Mercury with his caduceus in his left hand, such as the Gallo-Roman example in the Carnavalet Museum, Paris; the missing right hand may have held a sack of coins. Mercury was adopted into local Gallo-Roman and Romano-British religion where statuettes of the god were used as cult objects.
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