Minerva throwing her aegis over Achilles
Not on view
The intaglio is one of six known fakes at the Met from the storied gems collection of Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski of Poland. Carried out in a classicizing style indebted to Antonio Canova, the gem bears a false signature intended to announce its authorship by one of the celebrated carvers of ancient Greece. The deception of the Poniatowski gems – most of which are nineteenth-century forgeries – was discovered in 1895. The Museum’s six were mounted in velvet boxes by Tiffany & Co.
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