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FOLIATED TERMINAL OF A SPIRAL SHAFT
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FOLIATED TERMINAL OF A SPIRAL SHAFT
Pentelic marble
Height: 21cm
Width: 24cm
Thickness: 12cm
Width: 24cm
Thickness: 12cm
Museum number: S77
Vermeule catalogue number: Vermeule 216
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
Twin acanthus bud tops in the centre of which are carved large rosette flowers on the sides, while budding flowers appear between the leaf sheathing below.
These double pine cone or acanthus bud finials do not always join twisted shafts but sometimes attach to the more orthodox, elaborately foliate type simple shaft, as witnessed by a well preserved example from the Stettiner Collection in Rome. Coupled with the Villa Borghese ensemble1 these shafts provide the best evidence for linking the spiralled columns and their finials, found (as the Soane and Museo del Terme, Rome, examples reveal) so much around Rome, with the vine and peopled scrolls of the Graeco-Roman East.
1 J.B. Ward Perkins, Journal of Roman Studies XLII, 1952, p. 27ff; above, under Soane collection Vermeule no. 213 (M672).
These double pine cone or acanthus bud finials do not always join twisted shafts but sometimes attach to the more orthodox, elaborately foliate type simple shaft, as witnessed by a well preserved example from the Stettiner Collection in Rome. Coupled with the Villa Borghese ensemble1 these shafts provide the best evidence for linking the spiralled columns and their finials, found (as the Soane and Museo del Terme, Rome, examples reveal) so much around Rome, with the vine and peopled scrolls of the Graeco-Roman East.
1 J.B. Ward Perkins, Journal of Roman Studies XLII, 1952, p. 27ff; above, under Soane collection Vermeule no. 213 (M672).
Provenance
Unrecorded.
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