Images du pouvoir et pouvoir de l'image. Les “médaillons-portraits” miniatures des Lagides

Miniaturization is a topic of growing importance in the history of art. Among the forms that this miniaturisation took was the portrait. In the ancient Greek world small-scale portraits of kings first appeared in the courts of Philip II and of his son, Alexander ‘the Great’. Such portraits grew in popularity in the Hellenistic kingdoms that the latter’s generals established after 322 BC. This book is the first major study of royal portraits on small-scale medallions in Egypt’s Ptolemaic kingdom where such portraiture was especially popular. The book analyses the materials that artists used to make these medallions and the established modes of depiction that they adapted for their royal portraits. It considers the functions that these striking medallions performed in the contexts in which they circulated. The book also explores how contemporaries perceived them and how this perception, as well as their documented uses, determined largely the different iconographical types that this artwork took. Lastly the book studies the attributes of power that these portraits gave Ptolemaic kings and furnishes a catalogue of this important body of ancient portraiture.