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Fragment of a Roman altar or perhaps a carved base
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Marble fragment SM S107. ©A.C. Cooper (colour) Ltd
Fragment of a Roman altar or perhaps a carved base
98-117 AD
Trajanic
Trajanic
Pentelic marble
Height: 33cm
Width: 30cm
Thickness: 16cm
Width: 30cm
Thickness: 16cm
Museum number: S107
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 223
On display: Study
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
The fragment is enriched with carved rosette flowers, foliate acanthus stems, and, perhaps an inverted acanthus palmette.
Comparison and a connection with the two fragments SM S111 (Vermeule 221) and SM S105 (Vermeule 222) might suggest this as derived from the side of a statue base or a similar type of block with carefully carved but bold floral enrichment. In addition to the use of this motive in statue bases, there is the not unlikely possibility that, if inverted, this fragment formed part of a large, curved frieze such as seen in parts of a cornice and figurated frieze from the Basilica Ulpia and still preserved in Trajan's Forum1.
1 German Institute, Rome, Neg. 31.2654.
On the Forum of Trajan and the Basilica Ulpia, see A. Boëthius and J.B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, Baltimore, 1970, pp. 237-239. For the frieze of the Basilica, see also D.E. Strong, Roman Imperial Sculpture, London, 1961, p. 95, pl. 67.
Comparison and a connection with the two fragments SM S111 (Vermeule 221) and SM S105 (Vermeule 222) might suggest this as derived from the side of a statue base or a similar type of block with carefully carved but bold floral enrichment. In addition to the use of this motive in statue bases, there is the not unlikely possibility that, if inverted, this fragment formed part of a large, curved frieze such as seen in parts of a cornice and figurated frieze from the Basilica Ulpia and still preserved in Trajan's Forum1.
1 German Institute, Rome, Neg. 31.2654.
On the Forum of Trajan and the Basilica Ulpia, see A. Boëthius and J.B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, Baltimore, 1970, pp. 237-239. For the frieze of the Basilica, see also D.E. Strong, Roman Imperial Sculpture, London, 1961, p. 95, pl. 67.
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.3. (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