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Side of a Roman acroterion
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Side of a Roman acroterion
1st century AD
Early Roman Imperial
Early Roman Imperial
Pentelic marble
Height: 66cm
Width: 40cm
Width: 40cm
Museum number: S110
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 117
On display: Study
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
The fragment is enriched with what were once delicately detailed honeysuckle palmette-pattern leaves in profile, scrolled stems, tendrils and flowers. It is early Roman Imperial work, perhaps predating that of the Ara Pacis and certainly of the same high quality in carving.
A pair of well known acroteria in the Vatican magasines are similar fragments from another building (or altar perhaps) in the Rome region.1 For the exact same style in cutting and arrangement of detail - now reincorporated in the North floral frieze of the Ara Pacis - compare Gusman.2
1 W. Amelung, Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, Berlin, 1903-08 Volume 1 - 1903; volume 2 - 1908, Vol. I, pp. 299, 300, nos. 191, 193, pl. 29 and bibliography.
2 P. Gusman, L'Art décoratif de Rome de la fin de la république au IV siècle, 2 vols, I, pl. 1; G. Moretti, L'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome, 1938, pl. X f., upper right corner of the Ara Pacis.
A pair of well known acroteria in the Vatican magasines are similar fragments from another building (or altar perhaps) in the Rome region.1 For the exact same style in cutting and arrangement of detail - now reincorporated in the North floral frieze of the Ara Pacis - compare Gusman.2
1 W. Amelung, Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, Berlin, 1903-08 Volume 1 - 1903; volume 2 - 1908, Vol. I, pp. 299, 300, nos. 191, 193, pl. 29 and bibliography.
2 P. Gusman, L'Art décoratif de Rome de la fin de la république au IV siècle, 2 vols, I, pl. 1; G. Moretti, L'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome, 1938, pl. X f., upper right corner of the Ara Pacis.
Provenance
Rome; collected by Charles Heathcote Tatham for the architect Henry Holland during the 1790s. See Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished Catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, transcription of Tatham letters, List 2, no. 58.
Literature
Tatham: Etchings, 14; Drawings, 2.
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