LOT 0214

Byzantine Bronze Empress Mount

5TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.

3 3/4 in. (192 grams, 97 mm).

Formed in the half-round as a youthful female bust, a cross in the middle of the high hair arrangement (propoloma).

Ex law professor in Alexandria, prior to 1930.
Ex collection of M. Bouvier, Switzerland (1901-1980).
Private collection, UK.

Cf. Bogdanović, J., Sinkević, I., Mihaljević, M., Marinkovic, C., Series: Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Leiden-New York, 2023, figs.1.6,1.7, for bronze busts of empresses; cf Wamser, L., Die Welt von Byzanz - Europas Östliches Erbe, München, 2004, fig.355, for a 6th-7th century A.D. Roman example of a tripod with busts.

The image of the Roman empress during the late Roman Empire was connected to Christianity by the figure of the Empress Helena. Constantine had several cities renamed Helenopolis in honour of his mother, Helena, and she gained the political verification of power with the status nobilissima femina in 318 A.D. and the rank of Augusta in 324 A.D. Alongside her social and political image, Helena also had a significant reputation as a good Christian who was a patron and took care of poor people. Owing to this powerful religious image that was created, all other Christian women during the Eastern Roman Empire were encouraged spiritually by the fact that Helena was the mother of the first Christian emperor, and the image of the Roman empress was connected to the Christian image of the Mother of God, and represented on weights, bronze appliques and, in this case, maybe as an upper mount of a tripod.