Broganza brooch - a golden, delicately ornamented brooch , dated about the second half of the 3rd century BC. e. The brooch was discovered in Portugal in the 19th century; more precise circumstances of its appearance are unknown. It is assumed that the product was made by a Greek craftsman who lived in Iberia [1] . Currently stored at the British Museum .
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| Braganza brooch . 3rd century BC | ||
| English Braganza brooch | ||
| gold. 5 × 14 cm | ||
| British Museum , London | ||
| ( inv. ) | ||
History
The brooch was in the collection of the royal house of Braganza , due to which it got its name. The exact origin, as well as the history of getting to the first owners, is unknown, but it is believed that Fernando II , the spouse of the Queen of Portugal, Maria II , acquired it. Most of the jewelry of the Braganza dynasty was inherited in 1919 by Nevada Stoody Hayes, the Duchess of Porto, who later emigrated to America. In 1941, after her death, the brooch came to Warren Piper, a jeweler from Chicago. In 1950, the brooch was acquired by Thomas Flannery Jr., who organized the first display of the product to the public at the Celtic art exhibition in Edinburgh and London in 1970. After Flannery’s death, his collection was managed by his wife, who in 1993 provided the brooch to the British Museum for display, but not into the property. In 2001, the British Museum purchased the product for 1,580,570 dollars [1] .
Description
The size of the brooch is 14 cm in length and 5 in height. The golden design is decorated with a detailed figure of a naked warrior, in a helmet, with an oval shield in his hands and a sword on his belt. The shape of the helmet, sword and shield has found its archaeological confirmation and allows the attribution of the depicted warrior as a Celt (or Iber). In particular, the helmet of the warrior is identified as belonging to the type of Montefortino , this form was copied by the Romans from the helmets of the Celts and Gauls. The straight-blade sword is a universal type characteristic of the Latin culture (the Celtic archaeological culture of the Iron Age , spread throughout Central and Western Europe, including the territory of modern Portugal).
A stylized monster, similar to a lion or griffin, jumps on the warrior’s shield with its front paws. The figure of the beast goes into a decorative element and ends with the head of an animal resembling a dog. In addition to the composition of the attacking monster's compositionally connected figure with the warrior, the brooch is decorated with four more stylized animal faces made in the animal style . It was not possible to identify the belonging of animals to a specific culture. The researcher of the brooch Fernando Quesada in his article [2] admits that the figure of the attacking animal can be a late addition to the design of the brooch, made already in the 19th-20th centuries, since its style and detail are somewhat inconsistent with the technique in which the figure of a warrior is made. Quesada admits that this insert could be forced, making up for a similar lost element of the brooch, but only in the form of an assumption.
The arc of the brooch is decorated with ornaments and curls along the crest. The needle with which the brooch was attached to the clothes is missing (lost).
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Braganza brooch on the website of the British Museum
- ↑ Fernando Quesada. The Braganza Brooch warrior and his weapons: the Peninsular context . A. Perea (ed.) La fibula Braganza. Madrid, 2011, CSIC-Polifemo
Literature
- M. Lenerz-de Wilde. The Celts in Spain , The Celtic World (London and New York, Routledge, 1995)
- I. Stead. Celtic Art , British Museum Press, 1996
- Megaw Ruth and Vincent. Celtic Art: From Its Beginnings to the Book of Kells , 2001