LOT 0852

Large Roman Harness Mount Bronze Trumpet Whorl Mount Pair

2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D.

4 in. (340 grams total, 10-10.2 cm).

Each a D-section disc with central triskele and coiled arms, segmented detailing to the outer face. [2, No Reserve]

From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Cf. Barkoczi, L., ‘Deux Tombes de cheval à Brigetio (two horse graves at Brigetio, in Hungarian and French)’, in Archaeologiai Ertesito, series III, Vol.VII-VIII-IX, 1946-1947-1948, Budapest, 1948, pp.169-162, pls.XXVI-XXVII, XXIX, XXXIII, and figs.4-5, for identical mounts.

The two mounts are elements of horse harness decorating the antilena and postilena of the horse, as intersection fittings of the main straps. According to Alfoldi, these horse harnesses were the product of a metallurgy that was the fruit of a Gallo-Roman revival, and not exclusively of military nature. The military adopted similar elements fruit of the revival of this Celtic-Roman decorative art, since such harnesses have also been discovered in border fortresses. But the large industrial centers, which worked for export, manufactured objects primarily for the Danubian regions where both the soldiers and the civilian population, without distinction of class, used them as habitual objects.