The ancient Greeks impressed carved gems, like the left-hand object in this pair, in clay or wax. The gems were personal seals, and the impressions they made identified people, as our signatures do today. On the right, you see a modern impression of the gem with the design reversed.

The material is chalcedony, a quartz hardstone suited to the rendering of fine details but difficult to carve with such precision. The artist who made this gem described a minute figure in remarkable detail with only the simplest tools. The gem displays in miniature the same fine workmanship that distinguishes the best Greek art on any scale.

The same imagery and principles of design that inform Greek art in other media also apply to Greek gems. The sinewy male nude here has many counterparts in vase-painting; compare it to the figures you see depicted elsewhere in this gallery. Like them, this youth testing his arrow is endowed with both a powerful body and a sense of purpose. His pose helps him perform his activity with ease and also turns his body into a compact shape, a perfect match for the oval field he occupies.