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Cinerary vase carved with bacchanalian heads and vine leaves
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Cinerary vase carved with bacchanalian heads and vine leaves
Travertine marble
Height: 57cm, maximum
Height (excluding modern pedestal): 50cm
Height (lid): 14cm
Height (frieze): 23cm
Height (excluding modern pedestal): 50cm
Height (lid): 14cm
Height (frieze): 23cm
Museum number: M841
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 348
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
Beneath and between two scroll volute handles, a continuous wreath of grapes, leaves, and vine. In the upper centre, balancing the handles, appear two young, male, Bacchic heads, crowned with an extension of the grape vine, in full frontal view. For similar masks on a large Piranesi-type cinerary vase, of even more elaborate design than the present, compare no. 209 from the Hope Heirlooms sale (Christie's 23 July 1917, from Deepdene).
Provenance
Purchased by John Soane at Robert Adam's Sale, Christie's, 22 May 1818, the second of two marble vases sold as Lot. 96, A cylindrical cinerary urn and cover with rich festoons [Soane A44] and 1 with masks and vines [this vase], which Soane bought for £10.15.0.
Literature
Description of Sir John Soane's Museum, 1930, p.83, fig. 49 (right end).
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