A LATE HELLENISTIC OR ROMAN BRONZE FULCRUM TERMINAL

CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Details

A LATE HELLENISTIC OR ROMAN BRONZE FULCRUM TERMINAL
CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.
With Venus in high relief but for her torso which is rendered in the round, the goddess depicted seated, presumably on a rock, her toes projecting over the edge of the terminal, the goddess wearing a himation draped around her legs and splaying out to either side, its folds beautifully delineated, her nude torso subtly twisting and leaning slightly forward, an attribute once held in her right hand, her hair center parted and tied in a chignon, her eyes articulated
7¾ in. (19.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Said to be from Asti in Piedmont, Italy.
de Sanctis Mangelli Collection, Rome; L. Pollak, Rome, Oggetti d'Arte Antichi, 26-28 March 1923, no. 230, pl. VIII.
Ambassador Coe, France.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1988 (Art of the Ancient World, vol. V, part 1, no. 12).

Literature

S. Reinach, Répertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Paris, 1924, p. 523, no. 4.
S. Faust, "Fulcra: figürlicher und ornamentaler Schmuck an antiken Betten," Römische Mitteilungen, 1989, p. 94, 130, no. 454, pl. 60.
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. 88-04.
J.J. Herrmann, "From Olympus to the Underworld, Ancient Bronzes from the John W. Kluge Collection," Minerva, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 40-41, fig. 8.

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

A bronze in the British Museum (Walters, Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, no. 286, pl. VIII), found in Lago di Bracciano, depicts a youth reclining antithetically to the present example. Although the two may not have been an actual matched pair, they share many traits in common, including the scale, the treatment of the drapery, the twisting, reclining pose, and classicizing facial features. Their identification as Venus and Adonis seems plausible, an appropriate subject to adorn the ends of a luxurious couch.

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