Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 1127. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $625. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Symeon. Metropolitan of Seleucia, 787-815. PB Seal (33mm, 27.78 g, 12h). Theotokos standing facing, wearing chiton and maphorion, in her left arm holding the child Christ who is wearing chiton and himation and holding volumen in left hand; cruciform invocative monograms on either side / CVME/wN MHTRO/POL SCELEV/KIAC (ornament) in four lines. BLS I 2983; DOCBS -; Seyrig -; Vatican -; Orghidan -; Jordanov -. VF, gray patina.

From the Robert E. Hecht Collection.

The Iconoclasm movement of the 8th and 9th centuries condemned the veneration of icons. While many emperors supported the movement with varying degrees of enthusiasm, others defended the holiness of icons. This and the following seal date between 787, when the Iconoclasm was denounced at the Second Council of Nicaea, and 815, when the Iconoclasm was revived under Leo V.