UNIQUE CATALOGUE / BOOK El Legado de Hefesto - Hephaestus Legacy A memorial to a private collection of ancient rings and glyptics 33.7 x 24.7cm, 270 pages. THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF RINGS, ENTAILS AND CAMAFEOS IN SPAIN. Spanish and English edition. 2012. More than 700 items with photo. A reference book. Bout the book: Over eighty years ago a German businessman who had settled in Barcelona decided to start collecting diverse archeological objects, focusing on those used by men and women to decorate their bodies. Perhaps he did this by chance, or perhaps he was carried along on the wave of a fashion along with others from the enlightened classes who, from the 17th Century on, devoted themselves to collecting antique and exotic objects, often picked up on voyages to faraway lands. These would then form part of cabinets full of curiosities, or of great collections which, together with the collections of kings and noblemen, would become what are today the greatest art museums in the world. Years later, the grandson, following in the steps of the grandfather who had already collected more than one hundred and fifty rings, intaglios and cameos, widened and improved this collection – which he rescued from a display case in some corner of the family home - until it was twenty times its original size. In this Collection of more than two thousand rings, intaglios and cameos, we can find pieces representative of all the cultures that flourished around the Mediterranean: work from the 6th Millennium B.C. in the Middle East, from Ancient Egypt, from Greece, pieces produced by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, marvellous examples from a wide range of cultures from pre-Roman Europe along with a great quantity from the most magnificent era of the Roman Empire, examples from the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Europe, a selection from the Islamic World and finally, a small number of pieces from the Renaissance to the 19th Century. Today the Gallery J. Bagot Arqueología – Ancient Art takes pleasure in presenting this impressive collection to historians, lovers of art and collectors through the exhibition and publication of a selection of the pieces of highest quality. More than eight hundred rings, intaglios and cameos now reappear to transmit the same enthusiasm that the collector felt as he acquired one by one these little works.