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LOT 0121
Roman Bronze Statuette of the Goddess Juno
3RD-4TH CENTURY A.D.
9 7/8 in. (693 grams total, 25 cm high including stand).
A substantial hollow-form figure of Juno (Greek Hera) standing with right hand in gripping pose, left hand extended palm-upwards, engraved collar to the neck and diadem to the hair, palla gathered at the waist, slipping from the right shoulder; mounted on a custom-made stand.
ProvenanceHoratio and Patsy Melas Collection, Alexandria and later Switzerland, acquired by 1960 and until 1989.
Kyros Melas Collection, London, 1989 until 1999.
with Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 21 October 1999, no.178 [£6,000-£8,000].
Private collection, London.
Accompanied by copies of the relevant Bonhams catalogue pages.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13308-258228.
Cf. for similar typologies Reinach, S., Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, Paris, 1897, p.240, 9.
FootnotesThe figure's pose recalls that of the statue of Juno Sospita in the Vatican Museum, Rome, inv. no.241. Horatio Melas was born in 1904 into a family of Greek merchants established in Alexandria, Egypt. It was there that he met and, in 1960, married Patsy, and together they maintained the family collection. Following the family's departure from Egypt in 1967, the collection was relocated to Switzerland, remaining there until 1989, when their son, Kyros Melas, settled in London. Kyros, who worked in the City as a private equity trader, continued to care for the collection and occasionally added to it during the 1990s.
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The oval intaglio engraved with a whimsical image of a stork emerging from the mouth of a large seashell, its neck arched forward to seize a small mouse by the tail; set in a finely made 19th-century ring with openwork shoulders; supplied with a museum-quality impression. 4.25 grams, 24.31 mm overall, 19.30 mm internal diameter (approximate size British T, USA 9 1/2, Europe 21.26, Japan 20)
Acquired on the European art market. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13365-257944.
The stork, a bird symbolic in antiquity of vigilance, filial piety, and longevity, here appears in an imaginative fusion with a marine shell—an element often associated with Venus and the sea. The capture of the mouse adds an element of humour and narrative intrigue, perhaps evoking themes of cunning, the triumph of wit, or the unexpected in nature. Such unusual compositions are occasionally found in Roman glyptics of the late Republican period, appealing both for their novelty and symbolic richness.
