Incorrect Username, Email, or Password
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1919.512
Title
Fragment of a Decorative Relief
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
c. 80 BCE-138 CE
Period
Roman Republican period, Late, to Early Imperial
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292172

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Pentelic marble
Dimensions
16.2 x 27.3 cm (6 3/8 x 10 3/4 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William de Forest Thomson
Accession Year
1919
Object Number
1919.512
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
89

Fragment of a Decorative Relief

Fragment is irregularly cut along edges. There are some surface chips. The back or bottom is flat.

The fragment is either architectural or from a large ensemble of furniture. Linked floral motifs, palmette and honeysuckle, are carved in low relief around the curved outer or upper surface. A suggestion of carving in relief appears to begin on the raised, flat, circular inner surface. The bottom or back is flattened off with a claw chisel.

Worked in a competent archaistic style, the floral designs, including a stylized date palm, suggest a date from Sulla (80 B.C.) to Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Traces of a rasp around the leaves of the palmettes might indicate carving of the Imperial period, as late as the second century A.D.

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • 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. 103, no. 89

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