Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This griffin protome is unusual in that it ends in a hollow square socket rather than in a circular flange, as griffin protomes from cauldrons do (1). The head is elongated, and its upright animal ears rise from a bulge extending to both sides of the chin. The exterior surfaces of the ears are concave. A crack extends from the front edge of the left ear. A vertical crack appears in the surface of the neck below the chin. The hollow eyes, marked by raised brows, originally had inlaid pupils, perhaps of glass paste. A knob ending in a biconical bead with a second conical element on top rises from the center of the forehead. The socket is emphasized by a group of three raised ridges. There is no incised surface ornament anywhere on this protome.
Square-socketed griffin protomes are rare. A virtual twin to this protome is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2). The date of acquisition of both pieces suggests that they may originally have formed a pair. While other griffin protomes ending in square sockets are known from Etruscan contexts, they differ markedly from the Harvard piece (3). Their necks are thin and stylized, and pairs of paws extend from the front part of the body (4). Possible uses for these protomes are for the arms of elaborate chairs or thrones, for the ends of horizontal poles, for sedan chairs, or as attachments for braziers. The modeling of the head, ears, and forehead knob make it highly probably that this piece is based on examples from an eastern Greek workshop that was closely affiliated with the workshop at the Heraion of Samos, to which around 300 griffin protomes are fragments have been attributed (5).
NOTES:
1. See, for example, 1963.130.
2. Inv. no. 41.11.2; see C. Alexander, “Greek Accessions: A Bronze Griffin, a Terracotta Vase, a Wax Head,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 36.10 (1941): 202-205, esp. 202-203, fig. 1; and R. De Puma, Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2013) 85, no. 4.55.
3. For general discussion of griffin protomes in Etruria and the West, as well as their relationship to Greek prototypes, see A. Romualdi, Catalogo del deposito di Brolio in val di Chiana (Rome, 1981) 21-22.
4. For examples in museums, see S. Haynes, Etruscan Bronzes (London, 1985) 142 and 254-55, nos. 25-26; U. Jantzen, Griechische Greifenkessel (Berlin, 1955) 80-81, including nn. 116-19 and pl. 59 (pieces in Florence, British Museum, Louvre, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the last of which is a twin to the Harvard piece; see supra 2).
5. Jantzen 1955 (supra 4); id., “Greifenprotomen von Samos: Ein Nachtrag,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 73 (1958): 26-49; H.-V. Herrmann, Die Kessel der orientalisierenden Zeit 2: Die Greifenprotomen aus dem Heraion von Samos, Olympische Forschungen 11 (Berlin, 1979); U. Gehrig, Die Greifenprotomen aus dem Heraion von Samos, Samos 9 (Bonn, 2004); and U. Höckmann, Die Bronzen aus dem Fürstengrab von Castel San Mariano bei Perugia (Munich, 1982) nos. 3-4, pl. 66.
David G. Mitten
