Sardonyx agate cameo, Alexandrian production, Ptolemaic age, late 2nd - early 1st Century BC.

The Farnese Cup is an exceptional example of Hellenistic glyptics, being unique in size, quality, figurative complexity and historical importance.

Carved in a single piece of four-layer sardonyx agate, it is decorated in relief both on the outside and the inside, and has the shape of phiale, the cup used in libations.

On the inside, figures of divinities and personifications are combined in a scene with complex allegorical meanings, possibly still not completely understood. At the centre, sitting on a Sphinx, who is a symbol of Egypt, is a figure in Isiac attire, presumably Isis herself, assimilated to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. On the left is Hades/Pluto, assimilated to Osiris, bearing the horn of plenty. At the centre, Horus/Triptolemos, bearing the plough yoke and the seed-bag. On the right are two female figures, personifications of the Seasons, or the cultivated fields and the dew. They are sitting beside a tuft of wheat. Above are two young men flying, one of whom is blowing in a buccina. They represent the Elesian winds, that blow from the north during the summer.

This scene, clearly referable to Egypt because of the Sphinx and of the Isiac figure can be interpreted as an allegory of the prosperity enjoyed by the Ptolemaic kingdom under the auspices of the major deities of the Egyptian pantheon. The latter are assimilated to the three major Greek deities of the Eleusinian cult, according to a religious syncretism typical of the Hellenistic age.

The great apotropaic mask of the Gorgon, on the outside of the cup, alludes to the threat represented by the external enemies of the state, and reinforces the political value of the scene on the inside. According to some scholars, the inside characters may allude to specific members of the Egyptian ruling dynasty. Some scholars think that the divine triad may represent Cleopatra III with her husband Ptolemy VII, died in 116 BC, and her son Ptolemy X Alexander, with whom she ruled Egypt from 107 BC onwards. According to a more recent theory, the figure of Isis is a portrait of Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt, vanquished by Octavian in 31 BC.

It is certain, in any case, that the cup was made in Alexandria, to be employed in rituals enacted in the course of the lavish ceremonies organised by the kings of Egypt and described in literary sources. It is a typical product of exquisite court art, an expression of the dynastic prestige of the house of the Ptolemies, translating a political message into an esoteric and intentionally allusive language.

Because of the unique character of the cup and the exceptional formal quality of the engraving, it is difficult to attempt to date it exclusively on typological or stylistic grounds. Historical evidence, however, indicates that it must have been made either in the period from 37 to 34 BC or, as most scholars believe, in the late 2nd Century BC.

After the conquest of the kingdom of Egypt, the cup presumably became part of the Roman treasure, along with the rest of the Ptolemaic collections, and it was then transferred to Constantinople, probably returning to the West in 1204 after the fall of Byzantium. In 1239, Frederick II of Swabia bought it from Provencal merchants. At the beginning of the 15th Century it was at the Persian court, in Herat or Samarcanda. After 1458, it was in Naples, the property of Alfonso of Aragon.