Pendant: Eros (?) wearing diadem with rosette over the forehead
Unknown Artist
A.D. 3rd century perhaps
Medium
gold
Dimensions
Height: 1 1/16 in. (2.7 cm)
Classification
Pendant, Eros (?)
Period
Roman Period
Department
Egyptian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1923
Accession Number
23.2.54
Art Historical Context
This delicate gold pendant, created in the third century A.D. during Egypt’s Roman Period, portrays a youthful figure likely representing Eros, the Greek god of love. At a time when Egypt was a province of the Roman Empire, such jewelry blended Hellenistic imagery with local traditions, reflecting the cosmopolitan tastes of its wearers. Small-scale pieces like this were often worn as amulets, believed to bring protection or good fortune through divine association. Fashioned from gold—a material valued for its luminous beauty and symbolic link to immortality—the pendant stands just over an inc...