Roman Bronze Standing Cockerel Statuette

Formed with stub wings, a hooked beak and circular eyes, tail folded under the body,tail feathers and a speckled or ruffled breast underlined by moulded textures; iron loop embedded in the reverse face. 700 grams, 11.2 cm



Ex Nigel Mills, London, UK.

The iron loop of the back may suggest this was attached to a vessel or other receptacle. Greek mythology associated the small white bird with Aphrodite, the goddess of love (known in Roman mythology as Venus). Venus is often depicted with doves fluttering around her or resting on her hand.

Incised with a palm frond within a hatched border, hatching to three of the side edges. 14.5 grams, 26 mm



‘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.

With large oval bowl and a long, slender handle, compressed into S-shape and terminating in a stylised bird’s head. 42.4 grams, 85 mm



Found near Welney, Cambridgeshire, in 1985.

Similar silver spoons (cygni), were found within a set of ten spoons (today at the British Museum with inventory nos. 1994,0408.81-90) with ownership inscriptions. The handle attachment of such spoons had some decorative profiling, and the name 'AVRVRSICINI' within the bowl was inlaid with niello. The spoons seems to have been produced by a Romano-British workshop of Late Antiquity (4th-5th centuries A.D.). The cygnus was a particular type of ligula. This type was characterised by a large, oval-shaped bowl, but was equipped, unlike the common ligula, with a shortened, recurved handle which terminated in a stylised water bird or swan's head (swan = cygnus in Latin).