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Fragment of a cresting plaque from the ridge of a Roman roof: Eros standing amongst stylised acanthus foliage and vine tendrils
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Fragment of a cresting plaque from the ridge of a Roman roof: Eros standing amongst stylised acanthus foliage and vine tendrils
Early 1st century AD
Terracotta
Height: 18cm
Width: 14cm
Width: 14cm
Museum number: M1162.C
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 469
Not on display
Curatorial note
The nude body of a winged Eros or Genius, head turned right, standing amongst stylised foliage, part of which is visible at the lower right.
Group I: Wainscoting Plaque
Von Rohden places this, according to foliate pattern in Type I, which is dated early first century AD. There is a complete plaque of this type in the Louvre, Paris.1 For a discussion of Eros in architectural foliage relating to a late fourth century BC pedimenta relief fragment in Boston, see L. D. Caskey.2 He notes that the Boston example is 'a Greek forerunner of the elaborate floral Arabesques of the Roman Imperial age, of which the reliefs from the Ara Pacis are the most famous examples'. The Eros in foliage terracottas show the parallel development of the motive in Augustan minor decorative art in the Hellenic vocabulary and Hellenistic tradition.3
For the decorative setting and iconographic surroundings of this manifestation of Eros, see M. Grant/A. Mulas.4
1 No. 3850; H. Von Rohden and H. Winnefeld, Die antiken Terracotten, (Architektomische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit) IV, pp. 189-192, 270, and plate LXI.
2 L. Caskey, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1925 pp. 105-106, no. 49.
3 See also Papers of the British School at Rome, XVIII, 1950, p. 6ff.
4 For Eros, see M. Grant and A. Mulas, Eros a Pompei, Milan, 1974, passim.
Group I: Wainscoting Plaque
Von Rohden places this, according to foliate pattern in Type I, which is dated early first century AD. There is a complete plaque of this type in the Louvre, Paris.1 For a discussion of Eros in architectural foliage relating to a late fourth century BC pedimenta relief fragment in Boston, see L. D. Caskey.2 He notes that the Boston example is 'a Greek forerunner of the elaborate floral Arabesques of the Roman Imperial age, of which the reliefs from the Ara Pacis are the most famous examples'. The Eros in foliage terracottas show the parallel development of the motive in Augustan minor decorative art in the Hellenic vocabulary and Hellenistic tradition.3
For the decorative setting and iconographic surroundings of this manifestation of Eros, see M. Grant/A. Mulas.4
1 No. 3850; H. Von Rohden and H. Winnefeld, Die antiken Terracotten, (Architektomische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit) IV, pp. 189-192, 270, and plate LXI.
2 L. Caskey, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1925 pp. 105-106, no. 49.
3 See also Papers of the British School at Rome, XVIII, 1950, p. 6ff.
4 For Eros, see M. Grant and A. Mulas, Eros a Pompei, Milan, 1974, passim.
Provenance
See Vermeule 459.
Literature
H. Von Rohden and H. Winnefeld, Die antiken Terracotten, (Architektomische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit.) IV, p. 190.
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