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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1920.44.140.A-B
Title
Osteotheke
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
200-300 CE
Period
Late Antique period
Culture
Graeco-Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292213

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble
Dimensions
14 x 11.2 x 17.2 cm (5 1/2 x 4 7/16 x 6 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Museum, 1920.

Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
Accession Year
1920
Object Number
1920.44.140.A-B
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
131

Graeco-Roman Osteotheke

The soapy, alabaster-like marble is of the type used for small statues in Alexandria in Roman times. The surfaces of the body and lid are incrusted with cement. There is a deep, slightly curved channel cut from one end of the top of the lid to the middle.

The form is that of an Attic sarcophagus, and the date might be in the third century A.D., or later. The piece of marble may have been reused, or the carefully cut-out area on the lid may have been designed for some form of vertical attachment, perhaps a cross. Some such reliquaries have a depression in the gable of the roof or an opening for pouring a libation. They were often used for the relics of saints as well as the cremated remains of loved ones. This example may have had decoration painted on the outer surfaces. A similar marble reliquary chest from under the altar of a ruined sixth-century church near Varna (Odessos) in Bulgaria had relics, perhaps of the True Cross, in a gold box set with precious stones insides a silver sarcophagus of traditional Attic shape, all placed in the marble chest with its gabled lid (Weitzmann 1979, pp. 631-633, under no. 569).

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.141, no. 131

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