Details

LOT 0120

Two Roman Sandstone Architectural Frieze Sections

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

30 in. (76.2 kg total, 76.5 cm each).

Each rectangular with raised upper lip and a raised decorative frieze with rosettes and a bull's head (bucranium) separated by triple pilasters. [2]

Provenance

with Georges Joseph Demotte (1877-1923) and Andrée Macé (1918-2000), Belgium and New York.
Collection Demotte/Andrée Macé; Jean-Claude Renard Auction, Suresnes, 3 September 2013, no.87.
with Galerie Chenel, Paris, 2021.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12624-236336.
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.

Literature

For similar frieze visible on the tomb of Caecilia Metella in Rome see Napp, A.E., ‘Bukranion und Guirlande. Beiträge zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der hellenistischen und römischen Dekorationskunst,' Heidelberg University, 1933, p. 2.

Footnotes

In classical Rome bovine skulls decorated the friezes of entablatures. Often, they were positioned in the metopes of Doric entablatures, but also in Ionic and Corinthian friezes, sometimes connected by floral or drapery swags. The architectural term for these skulls is bucranium (pl. bucrania or bucranes), a word derived from the Latin bos, meaning ox or cow, and cranium, the Medieval Latin term for a skull. The skulls allude to the ancient Greek and Roman ceremonies of sacrifice.