Explore Collections

You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Section of the base(?) of a Roman candelabrum or decorative shaft
Browse
Curatorial note
This fragment has, below the echinus, (the ovolo / curved mouldng around the top), a cavetto enriched with stylised bay-leaves with berries between them. It is probably the upper section of the base of a shaft such as the ensemble in the Palazzo dei Conservatori1, or perhaps, from the rough finishing on top, the broken off top central section of the pedestal of a large decorative bowl (such as two examples from Pompeii2).
1 Compare with: The British School at Rome, Catalogue of ancient sculptures preserved in the municipal collections of Rome: The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, H.S. Jones, 2 vols, Oxford, 1926, p. 224, no. 22, pl. 86.
2 V. Spinazzola, Le Arti Decorative in Pompeii e nel Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Milan, 1928, Arti Decorative, pl. 40f.
1 Compare with: The British School at Rome, Catalogue of ancient sculptures preserved in the municipal collections of Rome: The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, H.S. Jones, 2 vols, Oxford, 1926, p. 224, no. 22, pl. 86.
2 V. Spinazzola, Le Arti Decorative in Pompeii e nel Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Milan, 1928, Arti Decorative, pl. 40f.
Rome; collected in Rome 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 See Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, transcription of Tatham letters, List 3, no.17.
Literature
Tatham: Drawings, 8 (?).
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: worksofart@soane.org.uk