{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O333426"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O333426/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019MC9953/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019MC9953/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2019MC9953","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O333426/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O333426","accessionNumber":"5007-1901","objectType":"Medallion","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Depicted on this Wedgwood basalt medallion are bust portraits of the ancient Carthaginian writer Mago, and the translator of his agricultural manual, Cassius Dionysius of Utica (located in modern-day Tunisia). Following the Roman conquest of Carthage (also in modern-day Tunisia) in 146BC, the Roman Senate saved Mago’s 28 book agricultural account and arranged for it to be translated into Latin, by Decimus Silanus, and Greek, by Cassius Dionysius of Utica. On the basalt medallion, both ancient North African men face to the right, their portraits overlapping as if to signal the close metaphorical relation between writer and translator. \r\n\r\nResponding to an eighteenth-century intellectual and aesthetic enthusiasm for the classical worlds of ancient Greece and Rome, Wedgwood produced numerous cameos and medallions featuring antique subjects and individuals. This double portrait of Mago and Cassius Dionysius appears in at least three seventeenth and eighteenth century European printed sources which Wedgwood may have copied. The print is included in Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s 1685 publication of images of ancient individuals, copied from ancient objects like coins, gems, and sculptures. Beneath Bellori’s print of Mago and Cassius Dionysius is the inscription ‘Apud Fuluium Vrsinum in gemma’, suggesting that the ancient object from which the portrait was copied was part the gem collection of Fulvio Orsini, an Italian 16th century librarian and antique dealer. After Orsini’s death, his collection passed into the Farnese family, and later into the Royal Bourbon Museum, now called the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.  ","physicalDescription":"Medallion of black basalt ware in a gilt metal frame with cameo busts of the Carthaginian writer Mago and Cassius Dionysius of Utica, facing to the right, above the inscription ‘Mago and Dionysius.' \n","artistMakerPerson":[],"artistMakerOrganisations":[{"name":{"text":"Josiah Wedgwood and Sons","id":"A1450"},"association":{"text":"manufacturer","id":"x33306"},"note":""}],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"black basalt","id":"x30176"},{"text":"gilt metal","id":"x35080"}],"techniques":[{"text":"moulding","id":"AAT53134"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Black basalt ware in a gilt metal frame","categories":[{"text":"Ceramics","id":"THES48982"},{"text":"Portraits","id":"THES48906"},{"text":"Medallions","id":"THES49034"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"CER","id":"THES48594"},"images":["2019MC9953"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"007","id":"THES335013"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Medallion","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Etruria","id":"x33200"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1774-1780","earliest":"1769-01-01","latest":"1780-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Length","value":"5.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"4.8","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'MAGO'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Impressed below the bust"},{"content":"'Wedgwood & Bentley'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Impressed"},{"content":"'DIONYSIUS'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Impressed below the bust"}],"objectHistory":"Listed first in 1774 in the Wedgwood Catalogues as ‘Mago and Dionysius of Utica.’ The same description for the medallion appears in the catalogue of the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street. The medallion was transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1901, but with the identification of the two busts revised to ‘the Carthaginian commander Mago, and his opponent Dionysus the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse.’ Corrected in 2025.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Medallion of black basalt ware in a gilt metal frame with cameo busts of the Carthaginian writer Mago and Cassius Dionysius of Utica, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, Etruria, ca. 1774-1780. ","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"The double portrait appears in printed form in the following sources; \r\n\r\nBellori, Giovanni Pietro, <i>Veterum illustrium philosophorum, poetarum, rhetorum, et oratorum imagines</i>, 1685. \r\n\r\nLippert, Philipp Daniel, <i>Dactyliotheca Universalis signorum exemplis nitidis redditae,</i> 1755-1762.  \r\n\r\nSandrart, Joachim von,<i> L'Academia Todesca della Architettura, Scultura e pittura: Oder Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau- Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste</i>, 1675. \r\n\r\n(Information supplied by Michele Valerie Ronnick, Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Wayne State University, May 2025) "},{"reference":{"text":"Reilly, Robin, Wedgwood Volume I & II, London: Macmillan London Ltd, 1989.","id":"AUTH409513"},"details":"Volume II, p. 680","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Mahaffy, JP, 'The Work of Mago on Agriculture', <i>Hermathena</i> Vol. 7, No 15 (1889)","id":"AUTH409514"},"details":"","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"busts","id":"AAT47457"},{"text":"writer","id":"x36825"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["5007-1901"],"accessionNumberNum":"5007","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1901,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-28","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":true}}