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Cast of an antique relief of Alcibiades and Etere
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Cast of an antique relief of Alcibiades and Etere
Plaster cast
Museum number: M338
On display: Dome Area
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
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Curatorial note
Scene depicting to left a naked man holding a cithern supported on his right by a draped female figure looking left. On the right two partially naked women on a kline (couch).
The Roman marble relief (after an earlier Greek original) from which this cast is taken dates from the first century AD and is today in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (inventory 6688), ex-Farnese collection. It was found in Italy at an unknown location and is variously referred to as 'Alcibiades with hetaere' (the subject being the ancient Greek orator Alcibiades being led away from the house of courtesans), 'Apollo with the muses' or 'Bacchus with the Graces'. Early Soane inventories describe it more decorously as depicting 'a marriage ceremony'. There are casts in a number of European Collections, identified by Zahle.
The Roman marble relief (after an earlier Greek original) from which this cast is taken dates from the first century AD and is today in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (inventory 6688), ex-Farnese collection. It was found in Italy at an unknown location and is variously referred to as 'Alcibiades with hetaere' (the subject being the ancient Greek orator Alcibiades being led away from the house of courtesans), 'Apollo with the muses' or 'Bacchus with the Graces'. Early Soane inventories describe it more decorously as depicting 'a marriage ceremony'. There are casts in a number of European Collections, identified by Zahle.
Literature
Jan Zahle, Thorvaldsen: Collector of Plaster Casts from Antiquity and the Early Modern Period, Vol. II, p.189, Thorwaldsen inventory no. L281 and Vol. III, p.229 (illustration of Thorwaldsen example).
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