Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This object, which might be an element of furniture, consists of a long, solid bar joined to a feline protome and a hollow bottom section that resembles a column capital. The bar is rectangular in section (2.1 cm wide x 1.1 cm thick). On the back of the bar, near the top and bottom of the object, are the remains of extensions that would have been used to connect it to some other object; the back is otherwise flat and featureless. The front of the bar is decorated with a strip of four-petal (quatrefoil) rosettes. The rosette centers and petals are rendered with raised outlines that have recessed centers. The rosettes are separated from each other by two horizontal bands, and a faint line of stippling borders the edge on either side.
The head and neck of a feline (a panther or lion) emerges from the bar. The feline’s ears are laid back, and its mouth is open in a snarl. The animal’s features are modeled, including whiskers on the sides of the face and the circular eyes, which are reminiscent of the centers of the rosettes on the bar above. There may once have been a hole through the mouth for the attachment of a decorative ring, but the area is now obscured by accretions. Fur is indicated on the neck with wedge-shaped incisions with internal lines. The lower part of the feline, as it joins to the top of the capital, is decorated with fine lines. On one side, where the bar and back of the panther connect, there is an incised pattern of diamonds with center dots; a similar pattern is faintly present on the badly preserved other side. The top of the capital below the feline’s head is decorated with a band of circles, similar to the centers of the rosettes and the eyes of the feline, while the sides are fluted. Below the fluted portion are two raised horizontal bands with stippling, and below that emerges a fragment of a bar, similar in shape to the upper portion of this object. The full original size of the object is not clear.
Although not of the same form and shape, it is possible to compare this fragment with the upper legs of Roman tripods or table legs, which also often have animal protomes such as this one (1).
NOTES:
1. See M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone and Bronze: Additions to the Collections of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art, 1971-1988, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1988) 88-89, nos. 110-11; Antiquities, Sotheby’s (London) July 9-10, 1984, lot 155; L. Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli, ed., Il bronzo dei Romani: Arredo e suppellettile (Rome, 1990) 64-65, 145, and 259, no. 15, figs. 30-31; J. L. Argente Oliver and C. Garcia Merino, “Bronces hispanorromanos del Museo Numantino procedentes de Uxama,” in Bronces y religion romana: Actas del XI congreso internacional de bronces antiguos, Madrid, 1990, eds. J. Arce and F. Burkhalter (Madrid, 1993) 13-32, esp. 21, no. 9, fig. 2.1., pl. 5; A. Kaufmann-Heinimann, Götter und Lararien aus Augusta Raurica: Herstellung, Fundzusammenhänge und sakrale Funktion figürlicher Bronzen in einer römischen Stadt, Forschungen in Augst 26 (Augst, 1998) 78, fig. 35, no. 199 (part of a candelabrum). Compare also the ancient portions of Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, inv. no. 54.894; see D. K. Hill, “Roman Panther Tripods,” American Journal of Archaeology 55.4 (1951): 344-47, esp. pl. 39.
Lisa M. Anderson
