Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Section of a Roman candelabrum or decorative shaft
Browse
Section of a Roman candelabrum or decorative shaft
Pentelic marble
Height: 36cm
Museum number: X97
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 187
Not on display
Curatorial note
Shaft enriched with shallow fluted spiral bands with acanthus leaf on alternate spiral elements and at the top a heavy triple band wrapped around with two sculptured ends hanging down along the shaft, all to give the effect of wrapped, hanging drapery.
A similar shaft in the Terme magazines, Rome (no. 11762) was found with vase, candelabrum and other comparable decorative material in the building excavations of the Teatro Nazionale, Via 4 Novembre, Rome, in the first years of the twentieth century.
Other examples of similar twisted marble drapery which seemed to have belonged to a candelabrum shaft, include two fragments in Cherchell and one in the Vatican Museum1. [Jacqueline Thalmann]
1 Hans-Ulrich Cain, Römische Marmorkandelaber, Mainz, 1985, Nos. 14, 16 and 96, plate 89: 1, 2 and 5.
A similar shaft in the Terme magazines, Rome (no. 11762) was found with vase, candelabrum and other comparable decorative material in the building excavations of the Teatro Nazionale, Via 4 Novembre, Rome, in the first years of the twentieth century.
Other examples of similar twisted marble drapery which seemed to have belonged to a candelabrum shaft, include two fragments in Cherchell and one in the Vatican Museum1. [Jacqueline Thalmann]
1 Hans-Ulrich Cain, Römische Marmorkandelaber, Mainz, 1985, Nos. 14, 16 and 96, plate 89: 1, 2 and 5.
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 See Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, transcription of Tatham letters, List 2, no.8. (Soane Archive)
Literature
Tatham: Etchings, 5; Drawings, 1.
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