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Fragment of the bottom of a decorative support for a Roman chair or small table
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Fragment of the bottom of a decorative support for a Roman chair or small table
Pentelic marble
Height: 9cm
Width (base): 18cm, maximum
Length (bottom of base): 14cm
Width (base): 18cm, maximum
Length (bottom of base): 14cm
Museum number: M801
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 249
On display: Dome Area
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 pair of clawed feet or paws, set together on a heavy base, are probably from a piece of furniture supported by decorative sphinxes or lion-griffins such as the monumental "Bacchic" chair in the Louvre, composed from various antique fragments1.
1 P. Gusman, L' Art décoratif de Roma de la fin de la république au IV siécle, 2 vols, Paris, 1910, II, pl. 76.
1 P. Gusman, L' Art décoratif de Roma de la fin de la république au IV siécle, 2 vols, Paris, 1910, II, pl. 76.
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 See Cornelius Vermeule, unpublished Catalogue of the Antiquities at Sir John Soane's Museum, Introduction, transcription of Tatham letters, List 2, no. 54. (Soane Archive).
Literature
Tatham: Etchings, 12; Drawings, 2.
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