They’re small — some the size of a silver dollar — but each one contains a miniature world, inhabited by gods and heroes, recreated in breathtaking detail, painstakingly crafted centuries ago.

Minerva springing from the head of Jupiter. Neptune and Caenis traveling on a dolphin. Jupiter transforming himself into a shower of gold. Ganymeade borne away by an eagle.

They’re called Intaglio seals, and they’re the newest element in the decor Thomas Bartlett is assembling for a flat at the Riverfront Residences. A collection of 12 beautifully framed red seals — all heads of Roman caesars — now fills a wall near the entrance to the flat.

“They are so rare a lot of people don’t even know they exist,” said Jon Freeman, who collects and sells casts of the seals, mounted on silk in museum-quality gilt frames he hand-makes. Freeman’s San Francisco business, Tiberian Design, sells rare Greek and Roman seals as well as seals from the 18th and 19th centuries. His frames, works of art in themselves, are 23 karat parcel gilt and can be antiqued to appear hundreds of years old if the buyer so prefers.

Freeman, the son of a antique dealer, was learning the trade when he came upon a collection of 1841 seals dedicated to Prince Albert of England.

“I fell in love with them when I first saw them,” he said.  “I’ve become pretty much the Intaglio guy — I’ve dedicated my life to preserving and redistributing them. This is why I go first class all the way in framing them.”

The seals were originally kept in temples, and their size was a significant factor in their preservation over centuries, Freeman said. “Statues and friezes were destroyed but the seals remained to be discovered by collectors,” Freeman said.

He has scouts around the world looking for seals. Many of his antique seals come from a collection of a French aristocrat. “It’s the kind of thing they’d keep in their library and study with magnifying glasses,” he explained.

Freeman said his work with the seals has become his primary occupation, he still occasionally sells antiques, “but only if they’re really special” — like a pair of urns that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, which he recently sold.

He sells the seals through designers like Bartlett, and the ones he’s loaned to the Riverfront showcase will be for sale. He also makes stationery embossed with prints of the seals. “I had them at a stationery show in New York,” he said. “Caroline Kennedy was there, and looking at them, she said, ‘My mother would have loved them.’”

More arrivals

With Bartlett on an unexpected trip to Mexico, his daughter, Melina, stepped in this week to show what’s new in the project, which Bartlett plans to wrap up next week. After this, the residence will be open to the public to view by appointment, along with the other models and flats. Workers are putting on the finishing touches in several units before a grand opening scheduled for later this summer.

Melina Bartlett oversees the outdoor furniture division of Bartlett’s business and said they’ll be bringing in some samples to put on the deck outside the one-bedroom, one-bathroom flat. 

Other new arrivals since the Register checked in last week have transformed the small bedroom. A new blue and white carpet is in place, along with an antique daybed. The stunner, however, is the curtains, a hand-painted silk creations from Barbara Beckmann’s Napa studio, Beckmann Designs.

In the kitchen, a collection of antique copper and pottery has appeared. In the living room there is a large tree and a peach-colored silk chair, near the spot where more of Beckmann’s curtains — regal gold and white — spill onto the floor. Accessories, such as silver-framed photos and a bowl of apples, are now atop flat surfaces.

But the star has to be those tiny seals, and their devoted protector.

“I like this space,” Freeman observed. “It’s not a huge space but Thomas has created a balance with the scale of the furnishings.”

More information about the intaglio seals is available through Freeman’s Web site, www.tiberiandesign.com or by contacting Thomas Bartlett Interiors, 259-1234.