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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1949.78
Title
Feet of a Man Beside a Container of Scrolls
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
2nd-3rd century CE
Period
Roman Imperial period, Middle
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/291725

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble seemingly from western Asia Minor
Technique
Carved
Dimensions
actual: 7.5 x 12 x 6.7 cm (2 15/16 x 4 3/4 x 2 5/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
From the Collection of Clifford Moore (died August 1931), seemingly purchased by Moore in Rome in 1905 or 1906 in an antique dealer's shop.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. Norman Vuilleumier on behalf of Mrs. Clifford Moore's Estate
Accession Year
1949
Object Number
1949.78
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
143

Feet of a Man Beside a Container of Scrolls

The left foot above the ankle and the right foot below the ankle remain. There is an inscription along the front of the base.

A container of scrolls sits next to the left foot. The curled object, mostly drapery, by the right foot suggests the bottom of a serpent-entwined staff, partly covered by or ending in a section of drapery, and indicates the subject was possibly portrayed as Asclepius. The character of the footgear add evidence that this small statue portrayed a mortal rather than the god himself. Such statuettes were usually votive, as here, or funerary in nature, like the noble image of the boy L. Julius Magnus in the British Museum (Vermeule, C., von Bothmer, 1956, p. 333, pl. 110, fig. 25).

Usually it is the omphalos of Apollo that appears beside Asclepius, as in the statue of an early Antonine physician as the god, in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican (Bieber, 1957, pp. 74-77, fig. 8). The little boy as Asclepius, in Athens from the god's sanctuary at Epidauros (inscribed in the dedication by Ktesias), is on a qualitative level with the Harvard fragment (Bieber, 1957, pp. 87-88, fig. 34). It is also "late Roman."

Mason Hammond has kindly restudied the small fragment and provided provenance, aesthetic and archaeological details, and a corrected recording of the lettering, which is:
P • S • C • V • L • S M

Professor Hammond also writes that "the back of the left leg and scrinium is perfectly flat; clearly the piece was made for a niche where the back would not be seen" (letter dated 10 May, 1984). He feels the piece was made for votive rather than funerary purposes. The suggested reading of the abbreviations would corroborate this.

He has noted the descriptive label, base, and feet, and proposes the following expansion of the abbreviations, a suggestion given tentatively and based on the Asclepian character of the statue:

P(ro) S(alute) C(oniugis) V(otum) L(ibens) S(oluit) M(erito)

This interpretation translates as a dedication in payment of a vow for a spouse's recovery (this information seemingly supplied by Professor Herbert Bloch, 19 May, 1984).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI (1902), no. 31805.
  • Clifford Herschel Moore, "Latin Inscriptions in the Harvard Collection of Classical Antiquities", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (Cambridge, MA, 1909), 20, p. 14, no. 37
  • Clifford Herschel Moore, Latin Inscriptions in the Harvard Collection of Classical Antiquities, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (1909), Vol. 20/pp. 1-14, cat. no. 37, p.14
  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 156, no. 143
  • John Bodel and Stephen Tracy, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the USA: A checklist, American Academy in Rome (New York, 1997), p. 49.

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu