Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Fragment of a small Roman relief frieze (?)
Browse
Fragment of a small Roman relief frieze (?)
c.50 BC-early 1st century AD
Terracotta
Height: 14cm
Width: 26.5cm
Width: 26.5cm
Museum number: M1214
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 455
On display: Museum South Passage
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
For tours https://www.soane.org/your-visit
Curatorial note
Below a fillet and a bead and reel moulding is an acanthus leaf and flower stalk and tendrils on which a frog sits, left, at the left and a cupid stalks a grasshopper, right, at the right.
A fragment of late Hellenistic-early Imperial architectural terracotta enrichment, standing at the transitional point of such work from terracotta into the more permanent medium or marble. This curious piece, featuring a motive not rarely found in such work (compare in funerary relief, the provincial work in Trier Museum1), probably dates from c. 50 BC on and is paralleled by the little scroll of the painted frieze in the Villa dei Misteri.2
1 E. Esperandieu, Recueil général des bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine, Paris, 1907 VI, pp. 262f., no. 5018.
2 E.g. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri, p. 207, fig. 87.
A fragment of late Hellenistic-early Imperial architectural terracotta enrichment, standing at the transitional point of such work from terracotta into the more permanent medium or marble. This curious piece, featuring a motive not rarely found in such work (compare in funerary relief, the provincial work in Trier Museum1), probably dates from c. 50 BC on and is paralleled by the little scroll of the painted frieze in the Villa dei Misteri.2
1 E. Esperandieu, Recueil général des bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine, Paris, 1907 VI, pp. 262f., no. 5018.
2 E.g. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri, p. 207, fig. 87.
Provenance
Unrecorded.
Soane collections online is being continually updated. If you wish to find out more or if you have any further information about this object please contact us: worksofart@soane.org.uk