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Section of the base(?) of a Roman candelabrum or decorative shaft
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Section of the base(?) of a Roman candelabrum or decorative shaft
Greek island marble
Height: 12cm
Diameter (top): 23.5cm
Circumference: 73cm, maximum
Diameter (top): 23.5cm
Circumference: 73cm, maximum
Museum number: X75
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 201
On display: Sepulchral Chamber
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
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.
Provenance
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 See Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, transcription of Tatham letters, List 3, no.17.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 (?).
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