A Greek gold finger ring with the engraved portrait of Alexander the Great. Early 3rd century BC. 25mm long. Pollitt 14; Vollenweider 29. A magnificent portrait of enchanting beauty. From a European private collection

Introduced in 297 BC by Lysimachos, this portrait is one of the first and strongest posthumous images of Alexander the Great to have been made in antiquity. The famous conqueror is shown with his head and eyes turned to heaven, wearing the royal diadem and the ram's horn, a direct allusion to his being the son of Zeus Ammon. There are two variants of this portrait of Alexander: on the first, the ram's horn is carefully wrapped around the right ear, while on the second, from 287 BC onwards, the ram's horn now passes through the ear. Jerome Pollitt has suggested that Lysimachos may even have commissioned this portrait from the renowned Pyrgoteles, one of the three artists authorized to depict Alexander's figure in art (the others being Apelles for painting and Lysippos for sculpture).