Roman Bronze Cockerel Statuette

Modelled in the round standing facing, displaying anatomical detailing. 11 grams, 24 mm wide



‘The Ancient Menagerie Collection’ formerly the property of a Cambridgeshire lady, collected since the 1990s and acquired from auctions and dealers throughout Europe and the USA, now ex London collection.

Decorated with a frieze of partially preserved acanthus volutes from which emerges a figure of a winged female, possibly a siren, the body and the head of a woman with brown hair, the outstretched wings in pink and yellow; ochre background, cream-coloured line border with a green raised edge (part of the wall) below; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 979 grams total, 16 cm high including stand



From a European collection formed in the 19th century or earlier, based on the custom-made tooled leather box similar to another fragment kept in a case of similar manufacture with a label reading 'Fragment de Pompéi provenant de la vente Préat 1868' sold at Sotheby's New York, 12 December 2013, lot 84. Mitsukoshi department store, Nihonbashi, Tokyo, by 1974. Japanese art market, 1974-1978. 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 search certificate number no 11828-207723.

This painted stucco was probably part of a decorative frame. Such decorations can be seen on the famous Villa of Oplontis, where the painted walls of the Triclinium nr. 14 have been divided thrice by columns with a sphinx as ornament on the top of the pillar, decorated with acanthus scrolls and sirens beneath the sphinxes.

The intaglio with a donkey (mule?) grazing, body facing right; Latin inscription on the verso ‘EVM’ (him). 0.98 grams, 12 mm



Acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Important North West London collection.

Donkeys were used by the Roman army from circa 200 B.C. but mules, the hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, were to become the most important working animals for the military and were used to pull heavy artillery such as catapults. It has been estimated that there were probably half a million mules serving in the Roman army by the time of Augustus (31 B.C.-A.D. 14). DNA studies have now shown that mules may have comprised up to 50% of the equids in the Roman Empire. The use of pack-mules for the army continued in the Eastern Roman army until the fall of Constantinople.