A GREEK BRONZE GRIFFIN PROTOME

EAST GREEK, ARCHAIC PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 7TH-LATE 6TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

A GREEK BRONZE GRIFFIN PROTOME
EAST GREEK, ARCHAIC PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 7TH-LATE 6TH CENTURY B.C.
The long sinuous neck and eagle head with carefully incised scales, the menacing open beak with a projecting pointed tongue, the convex eyes with modelled brows, with long upright ears and a central knob at the crown of the head, the flange at the base of the neck with two perforations for attachment to the rim of a cauldron
6 in. (15.2 cm.) long

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 2-3 December 1982, lot 159.
with Robin Symes, London.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1988.

Literature

C.C. Vermeule and J.M. Eisenberg, Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes in the Collection of John Kluge, New York and Boston, 1992, no. 88-48.

Exhibited

From Olympus to the Underworld, Ancient Bronzes from the John W. Kluge Collection, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 26 March - 23 June 1996.

Lot Essay

Cast griffin protomes were most often attached to the rims of hammered cauldrons. Similar griffin protomes were cast on Samos and dedicated at the Heraion on that island. Olympia and Etruria also produced such vessels, and they have been found at Athens, Argos, Ephesus, Rhodes and elsewhere.

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