Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This fragmentary relief bears a scene of a nude youth patting the head of a dog. The youth is seated on a rock or a pillar covered with cloth, as drapery appears to be rendered below his proper left thigh. The youth’s head is in profile, facing left, while his torso is turned in three-quarter view. His musculature is rendered rather naturalistically; his torso includes an extra fold at the navel. His hair is short and wavy. His nose, right ear, eye, and half of his mouth are modeled, while the rest of his face blends into the blank field behind his head. The youth’s proper left arm hangs by his side, with his index finger extended. His right arm reaches out to touch the head of a dog, facing right, with its muzzle lifted to touch the youth’s arm. The dog is shown in profile, with details of its head clearly modeled and part of its body visible below the fragmentary legs of the youth.
G. M. A. Hanfmann, in his 1947 article on this piece, noted the difficulties in determining its original function, whether it was a decorative component of a helmet’s cheek piece, a vase-handle attachment, or even a mirror cover (1). Although it is possible that this could be a fragment from a cheek piece, comparison with a very similar and better preserved mirror decoration showing a nude figure patting a dog in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. Br 1716, indicates that this is more likely to be a mirror cover (2). The edges of some mirror cover fragments, including some still in situ on mirror discs, have curving borders that sometimes resemble cheek pieces (3). Depictions of youths with dogs also occur on marble grave stelai and may be signs that the young men are hunters (4).
NOTES:
1. Id., “A Greek Bronze Relief,” Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum 10.6 (1947): 184-88.
2. See A. de Ridder, Catalogue des bronzes antique 2, Museé du Louvre (Paris, 1913) 49, no. 1716, pl. 79.
3. See See A. Schwarzmaier, “A Greek Box Mirror in the Cleveland Museum of Art,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80.9 (1993): 354-67; and ead., Griechische Klappspiegel: Untersuchungen zu Typologie und Stil, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung: Beiheft 18 (Berlin, 1997) passim.
4. See, for example, the grave stele from the Ilissos River in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, inv. no. 869, dated to the mid-fourth century BCE, which shows a nude youth facing an old man with a dog and a slave at his feet.
Lisa M. Anderson
