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A Roman angle acroterion ornament
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A Roman angle acroterion ornament
Luna marble
Height: 46cm
Width (back, at base): 42cm, maximum
Depth (side): 27cm
Width (back, at base): 42cm, maximum
Depth (side): 27cm
Museum number: M643
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 118
On display: Colonnade - central aisle
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
This acroterion has the two joining surfaces carved into a large palmette flanked by palm plants and scrolled volutes at the rear edges, all on a heavy fillet base.
A seemingly larger and more carefully enriched acroterion of similar shape is drawn by G.B. Piranesi in his Antichità d'Albano1 as having been among ruins in the Villa Altieri at Albano and there is a similar example, probably also from a small building, among the architectural fragments in Room II (no.88) of the Museo Profano Lateranense [this Museum closed in 1970 and its contents were removed to the Vatican Museums where they are noted as 'ex Lateranense'].
This piece appears in a watercolour capriccio of objects in Soane's collection dated September 23rd 1825, Vol.82_111 (a side view of it is on the right and carefully numbered in pen).
1 Piranesi, Antichità d'Albano, pl. p.1; John Wilton Ely, Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings, vol. II, no. 641.
A seemingly larger and more carefully enriched acroterion of similar shape is drawn by G.B. Piranesi in his Antichità d'Albano1 as having been among ruins in the Villa Altieri at Albano and there is a similar example, probably also from a small building, among the architectural fragments in Room II (no.88) of the Museo Profano Lateranense [this Museum closed in 1970 and its contents were removed to the Vatican Museums where they are noted as 'ex Lateranense'].
This piece appears in a watercolour capriccio of objects in Soane's collection dated September 23rd 1825, Vol.82_111 (a side view of it is on the right and carefully numbered in pen).
1 Piranesi, Antichità d'Albano, pl. p.1; John Wilton Ely, Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings, vol. II, no. 641.
Provenance
Unrecorded.
Associated items
Vol 82/111, related material
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