Harvard Art Museums > 1928.176: Fragment of a Christian Monument Sculpture Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Fragment of a Christian Monument , 1928.176,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Apr 26, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/292327. Reuse via IIIF Toggle Deep Zoom Mode Download This object does not yet have a description. Identification and Creation Object Number 1928.176 Title Fragment of a Christian Monument Classification Sculpture Work Type sculpture Date 800-1200 CE Period Byzantine period, Middle Culture Byzantine Persistent Link https://hvrd.art/o/292327 Physical Descriptions Medium Pentelic marble Dimensions 15 x 11 cm (5 7/8 x 4 5/16 in.) Provenance Recorded Ownership History Professor Alfred Bushnell Hart, Cambridge, MA, (c.1888-1928), gift; to The Fogg Museum, 1928. Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Class of 1880 Accession Year 1928 Object Number 1928.176 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 199080 Fragment of a Christian Monument Top, left side, and bottom are broken irregularly. The right edge is finished with a rough chisel, and the back is even more roughly carved. The fragment is seemingly the upper right corner of a stele or small shrine with an architectural top. The workmanship is routine and therefore hard to date, but the monument probably belongs to the middle centuries of the Byzantine Empire. The low relief carving on the front consists of the right corner of a pediment with a stylized akroterion (mostly broken away) above. The fillet molding of the pediment is continued down the right side, and within an inset rectangle are a large rosette enframed upper left and lower left and right by the shaft and arm of a large cross with Maltese ends. There is a section of vertical, fillet molding forming the vertical shaft of the cross at the left and carving of an uncertain nature beyond. The same rosette appears in the center of the pediment at a commemorative stele from the area of the Agora at Assos. It belongs in the Hellenistic to Graeco-Roman periods (Comstock, Vermeule, 1976, p. 177, no. 283). Here, as a Greek Imperial survivor into the Byzantine period, the rosette exists amid other memories of Classical architectural decoration. The relationship between this cross and foliate acanthus enrichment goes back to the early Byzantine plaque with elaborate scrollwork around the krater, in the Archaeological Museums, Istanbul, from Constantinople (Müfid, 1931, cols. 209-210, fig. 28). 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. 94, no. 80 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
