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THE STANFORD PLACE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES: SOLD BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES The Stanford Place Collection of Antiquities is the product of a long tradition of collecting that originated with the Greeks and Romans and has endured for over two thousand years. The ancient Greeks valued objects of beauty but did not actively collect art for its own sake - an alien concept - until the Hellenistic period. Art had a function and an important place in society, communicating messages about status, politics and religion. A costly and beautifully executed votive statue placed in a public sanctuary confirmed the good taste and general excellence (arete) of the donor, enhancing his prestige and his standing in what was an exceedingly competitive society. By the end of the 5th and into the 4th Century B.C., however, there was an increase in private and secular art and a demand for luxury goods to adorn the homes of the wealthier classes. The first individual to collect masterpieces of Greek art created by particular artists of past and present periods was Attalus I, King of Pergamum (269-197 B.C.), a great patron of the arts and benefactor to Athens. He wanted to make his city the finest in the Greek world, vying with the Ptolemies in Alexandria to make Pergamum a major cultural centre. The Romans, however, were the first to collect Greek art on a wider scale. Contact with the Greek world resulted in the growing popularity of Greek art, particularly sculpture and painting. Ancient writers, from Cicero and Pliny to Pausanias, Plutarch and Strabo to name but a few, provide fascinating insights into the role and appreciation of art in the Classical world; indeed many of the most famous sculptures and works of art from Classical antiquity are now lost and known to us only through their writings. Their revelations about artists, craftsmen, works of art and their commissioning and acquiring, paint a vivid picture of a world where collecting and art appreciation is not unlike our own today. Plutarch, writing in the 1st Century A.D., tells us about the Roman General Marcellus who claimed to have brought art appreciation to Rome as a result of the treasures and works of art he had brought back from his conquests over the Carthaginians at Syracuse. Pliny (23-79 A.D.) records the influx of Greek art to Rome after the sacking of Corinth in 146 B.C. by the Roman consul and general, Mummius, and the extraordinarily high prices paid for paintings at the subsequent auction. During the 2nd Century A.D., Roman society became intensely Hellenized as Rome dominated the Greek East militarily and politically. Greek literature was read, sons of patrician families were sent to Rhodes and Athens to study, and the demand for both originals and copies of Greek and Etruscan art grew. By the 1st Century B.C. Rome had a flourishing art market with dealers, high prices, competition and auctions. Silverware, Corinthian bronzes, glass vases, antique furniture, engraved gems and cameos, paintings and marble sculpture were all sought after. Julius Caesar collected gems, statues and old paintings; Augustus preferred fine furniture and Corinthian vessels, whilst Nero had a passion for cameo vessels. The growth of the building industry produced a huge demand for statuary and decoration. Villas, palaces, gardens, bath complexes and buildings required ornament and furnishing. The Emperor Hadrian, ruling in the early 2nd Century A.D., was a well-bred connoisseur and made his villa at Tivoli a virtual museum with copies of famous Greek sculpture. He commissioned reproductions of the caryatids from the Acropolis, as had the Emperor Augustus for the Forum in Rome a century earlier. Cicero's letters about acquiring statuary for his Tuscan villa show the great quantity needed for such an estate and demonstrates that collecting well, even in the 1st Century B.C., was not always easy. For example his rather exasperated tone in a letter (Epistulae ad Familiares, 7.23) demonstrates the frustrations of the collector whose taste has not been understood by his agent, the works delivered being inappropriate and too expensive, and sheds light on the competitive Roman art market of the time: "... But everything would have been made easy, my dear Gallus, had you bought only what I wanted, and that only up to the price I was willing to pay. For in fact, out of all your purchases there is not one which I really want. You, though, in ignorance of my principles, bought these four or five statues at a price beyond what I would pay for all the statuary in creation. You compare your Maenads with Metellus's Muses. Where is the comparison? To begin with, I would never have thought those Muses worth so much money and all the Muses would have agreed. But they would at least have been appropriate to my library and in keeping with my studies: where on earth do I put the Maenads? They are pretty little figures, of course: I know them well and have often seen them. Had I fancied them, I would have specifically commissioned you to buy statues that were known to me. For I often buy the sort of sculptures that will embellish a place in my palastra and give it the appearance of a study centre (gymnasium). But a statue of Mars? What do I, the advocate of peace, want with that? I am glad you didn't get one of Saturn too, for I would suspect these two of running me into debt. I would rather a Mercury of some sort, for then I might have had better luck in my business with Avianius ..." The end of the Roman Empire and the advent of Christianity marked a dwindling in the interest of what was seen as pagan art and, up until the end of the Middle Ages, much ancient art was destroyed or disappeared. Two further revivals of Classical art followed, the first in the Renaissance, the second in the 18th Century. Widespread building programmes undertaken in Rome and other Italian cities in the 15th Century brought people into contact with classical sculpture, mainly Roman copies of Greek art (inspiring artists such as Michelangelo to experiment with the human form in sculpture). The revival of interest in Classical Antiquity driven by the Humanist movement, coupled with the opportunity for travel and also chance discoveries, resulted in a new era of collecting. The mania for all things Classical reached new heights in the 18th Century as a result of the excavations at Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1740). Easier travel around the Mediterranean facilitated the fashion for the Grand Tour so popular with the English. The collections formed by titled and untitled gentlemen installed in galleries and grand London houses or country estates such as Wilton House, Holkham Hall and Lansdowne House were prestigious emblems of wealth, power and good taste, and came to form the basis of great national collections. As new areas and civilizations of the Ancient World have come to be revealed, so increasing interest has been taken in them. Collecting and studying the artefacts of past cultures has long been seen as a way to understand them better, and to interpret and understand their heritage is to inform ourselves and understand our own world the more. It is this tradition that lies behind the formation of The Stanford Place Collection. A passion for ancient civilizations and an appreciation of the timeless beauty of the art created by its master artists and craftsmen has inspired the acquisition of works from the ancient Classical world, as well as from Egypt and the Ancient Near East. The collection has been the focus of study and inspired the acquisition of the specialised library at Stanford Place. Museum curators and scholars alike have been welcomed at Stanford Place to examine the objects and use the library, and several antiquities in the collection have been loaned to museums, including The 'Langlotz' Head (lot 28) on loan to the Michael C. Carlos Museum from 2004 to 2006, the Greek bronze 'Apollo' head (lot 29), exhibited at the Antikenmuseum Basel, 1996-2006, the Phrygian silver figure (lot 60) on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999-2006, and the Proto-Bactrian copper alloy Heroic figure (lot 62) on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999-2001. Many collectors over the past century have reflected that they are not so much owners as caretakers - custodians of the cherished artefacts of past civilizations for a limited and privileged period. It is hoped that the dispersal of The Stanford Place Collection will continue to inspire new generations of collectors and inform us about our ancestors and world heritage. We are grateful to Pearson Bruce Photography for photographs of lots 4-7, 12, 14, 17-18, 22-23, 26-27, 30-31, 34-36, 39, 41-47, 49-50, 59, 61, 68, 70 and front cover. Copyright for these images is with The Trustees of the Stanford Place Collection. THE STANFORD PLACE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES: SOLD BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES

A LARGE CYCLADIC MARBLE KANDILA

EARLY CYCLADIC I, CIRCA 3000-2800 B.C.

Details

A LARGE CYCLADIC MARBLE KANDILA
EARLY CYCLADIC I, CIRCA 3000-2800 B.C.
The broad rounded body with tapering neck and four crescentic lug handles pierced for suspension, on pedestal foot with deep concave base
11 3/8 in. (29 cm.) high

Provenance

Acquired from Jean-Luc Chalmin, London, mid 1990s.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Cf. P. Getz-Gentle, Stone Vessels of the Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age, Pennsylvania State University, 1996, pl. 18d for a kandila of similar form, attributable to Kandila Sculptor B.

This lot is accompanied by a certificate from The Art Loss Register.

See illustration on previous page for lots 1, 2 and 66.

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