LOT 0058

Greek Marble Funerary Anthemion Stele

4TH CENTURY B.C.

41 1/2 in. (37 1/2 in without stand) (55.6 kg total, 105.5 cm high including stand (95.2 cm without stand)).

Comprising a tall, plain body with two rosettes; crowned by an elaborate palmette and volute design with shallow acanthus stalks and small rosettes; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Private Swiss collection, acquired in the 1980s.
with Ward & Co., New York, 2014.
Private American collection, K.M., circa 2015-present.

Accompanied by a copy of an Art Loss Register certificate number S00114167, dated 2 June 2016.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.11776-204598.

Exhibited: Masterpiece, London, 29 June - 5 July 2017; TEFAF Maastricht, March 2018; Masterpiece, London, 28 June - 4 July 2018.

See Möbius, H., Die Ornamente der griechischen Grabstelen klassischer und nachklassischer Zeit, Berlin, 1929; Vedder, U., Untersuchungen zur plastischen Ausstattung attischer Grabanlagen des 4. Jhs. V. Chr.,Frankfurt, 1985; Riegl, A., Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, Princeton, 1992; Clairmont C. W., Classical Attic Tombstones, Kilchberg, Switzerland, 1993; Grossman, J.B., Greek Funerary Sculpture: Catalogue of the Collections at the Getty Villa, Los Angeles, 2001; Brinkmann, W., Wünsche, R., Bunte Götter, die Farbigkeit Antike Skulptur, München, 2004.

These memorials, originally painted (see gravestone from Paramythion, cf. Brinkmann-Wünsche, 2004, pp.148ff.), were venerated by families, anointed with oil, decorated with ribbons, and graced with offerings of food. They rivalled each other in the increasingly ostentatious display of family status and wealth, so much so that by the end of the 4th century B.C., a sumptuary law was passed, abruptly ceasing their production. In their heyday, these stelae provided sculptors an opportunity to demonstrate their technical virtuosity with both ornamental and figural subjects. It was not unusual for the anthemion to be of higher quality than the figures sculpted and painted below it.