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Fragment of the side-leg of a Roman seat or bench
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Fragment of the side-leg of a Roman seat or bench
Proconnesian marble
Height: 32cm
Width: 39cm
Thickness: 10cm
Width: 39cm
Thickness: 10cm
Museum number: M648
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 240
On display: Sepulchral Chamber
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
For tours https://www.soane.org/your-visit
Curatorial note
This piece is the lower half of the side support of a seat, chair or throne. The type and design are identical with Soane M646, but the two do not appear to be from the same chair due to minor differences in size and style.
Of all the antique furniture forms and motives revived for use in the Renaissance and later periods, this type of bench support was perhaps the most popular, being the simplest, most solid and most functionally decorative. There is hardly a Renaissance garden in Italy or France, or a formal layout anywhere else, that does not have a number of stone or marble benches with leg supports of this antique shape. In Florence, for example, they can be seen in the garden terraces of the Villas Capponi, La Pietra and a number of others.
Of all the antique furniture forms and motives revived for use in the Renaissance and later periods, this type of bench support was perhaps the most popular, being the simplest, most solid and most functionally decorative. There is hardly a Renaissance garden in Italy or France, or a formal layout anywhere else, that does not have a number of stone or marble benches with leg supports of this antique shape. In Florence, for example, they can be seen in the garden terraces of the Villas Capponi, La Pietra and a number of others.
Provenance
Unrecorded
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