A ROMAN BRONZE FIGURE OF A DANCING LAR, lively stepping forward on tip-toe, wearing a short-sleeved tunic belted at the waist with a cinctus to which are tied two mappae which billow out behind at either side, he wears open-toed leather boots and looks to his left towards an omphalos patera incised with a rosette which is held out in his right hand, a bull-headed rhyton is held aloft in his raised left hand, with a double row of long curling locks framing his face, right hand repaired, mounted, 1st Century A.D.

Details

A ROMAN BRONZE FIGURE OF A DANCING LAR, lively stepping forward on tip-toe, wearing a short-sleeved tunic belted at the waist with a cinctus to which are tied two mappae which billow out behind at either side, he wears open-toed leather boots and looks to his left towards an omphalos patera incised with a rosette which is held out in his right hand, a bull-headed rhyton is held aloft in his raised left hand, with a double row of long curling locks framing his face, right hand repaired, mounted, 1st Century A.D.
5¾in. (14.7cm.) high

Lot Essay

The Lares were popular domestic deities, bringers of prosperity, and images of them were placed in household shrines or lararia. The dancing Lares carrying a patera and rhyton, as the above figure is, have been identified with the Lares Compitales or Lares Augusti (Lares of the crossroads or of Augustus). Their cult was linked to that of the genius of the emperor by Augustus between 12 and 7 B.C. Cf. Exhibition catalogue, Rediscovering Pompeii, 1990, pp. 141-143, no. 6

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