LOT 0297

Romano-Celtic Bronze Leaping Boar Statuette

1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

3 in. (165 grams total, 74 mm wide).

Modelled in the round in a dynamic pose with fierce facial features and partially open mouth; ridge of bristles to the spine; mounted on a custom-made stand.

Found Hampshire, UK, in the 1980s.
From the collection of David Miller and a Cambridge, UK, collection, 2000s.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12512-231450.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D’Amato.

See Boucher, S. & Tassinari, S., Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine a Lyon: Bronzes Antiques I. Inscriptions, Statuaire, Vaisselle, Lyon, 1976, item 19, for type; Boucher, S., Recherches sur les bronzes figures de Gaule Pre-Romaine et Romaine, 1976, Rome, pl.66, fig.316, for type.

The small statuettes of boars found in Roman Britain and Gaul were likely used as votive figurines for cult places. They were widespread in the Roman provinces of Celtic origin. However, one cannot exclude the fact that many boars found in Britain belong to the pre-conquest era. One of the few types of bronze figurines that are known to precede the arrival of the Romans is, in fact, that of the boars.