Roman Bronze Decorated Statuette Base

Domed with decorative banding, a square-section tapering mounting spike on the reverse. 17 grams, 49 mm



Ex German art market, 2000s. Acquired from an EU collector living in London. From the collection of a Surrey, UK, gentleman. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

With broad rounded shoulder, piriform body tapering to a stub foot, cylindrical neck and flared rim with rolled edge, applied twisted green glass handles (one partly absent); slightly iridescent surface. 125 grams, 21.2 cm



Acquired on the UK art market, 1990s. Private collection, New York, USA.

A square tablet with Latin writing on twelve rows. 27 grams, 14 x 16.1 cm



Acquired by Albert Sfez in the early 1950s. Formerly the property of Monsieur Alain Sfez, a Belgian collector; acquired by gift from his father, Albert Sfez, in 1965. Acquired by a London dealer in 1973. From an important London collection since 1975; thence by descent.

Wax tablets written in Greek or Latin, were used by Romans as account registers (codices accepti et expensi); for transactions (for example, the tablets of the banker Lucius Caecilius Iucundus found in Pompeii); for lists of goods, inventories, and notes to be kept and archived; for Roman magistrates to annotate the salient events of their bureaucratical activities; for writing letters; for drawing up legal texts of various kinds: legacies, declarations of births and citizenship, reports of trials and diplomata militaria.