Details

LOT 0840

Roman Marble Eagle Head

1ST-4TH CENTURY A.D.

9 in. (1.88 kg total, 23 cm high including stand).

Carved facing left, with deep-set hooded eyes and a hooked beak, stylised feather detailing to the head; mounted on a custom-made display base.

Provenance

Ex Simmons Gallery, London E11, UK.
Ex London collection, 1980s-1990s.

Literature

Cf. for a similar colossal marble eagle Bell, G.L., Amurath to Amurath, London, 1911, fig.3, p.10; Mendel, G., Catalogue des sculptures grecques, romaines et byzantines, Constantinople, 1914, nos.1135 (1949), vol.III, p.369; Reinach, S., Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, Tome III, 1920; Bertelli, G., ‘Amari usque ad mare, Acceptus e magister David a Siponto: nuove acquisizioni’, in Eurasiatica 4, 2016, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”, p. 67, fig. 6.

Footnotes

In the Greco-Roman world, the eagle was the symbol of Zeus. It is most probable that this eagle flanked a statue of the god. A story is bruited abroad to the effect that Zeus, wanting to determine the centre of the world, let eagles fly of equal speed from west and east. The birds, flying in opposite directions, met at Pytho and that marked the central point of the whole world.