CIRCA 5TH CENTURY A.D.

細節

TWO BYZANTINE MARBLE MOSAIC PANELS
CIRCA 5TH CENTURY A.D.
Each multicolored composition on a cream ground, one depicting the personification of Spring and one of Winter, each a draped female figure enclosed within an arch, Winter with a red tunic worn to the floor and a green mantle pulled up over her head as a veil, pouring from a jug to a single flower blooming to her left, surrounded by a Greek inscription, reading: TPO\KP\kHXIMEPINH, or the Season Winter, portions of a guilloche and quartered balls alternating with lentoid motifs to the right; Spring wearing a sheer short-sleeved garment with black rays along the collar and hem, and a short red mantle filled with fruit, tied around her neck and over her shoulder and held up in her left arm, a single flower in her raised right hand, flowers blooming on either side below, surrounded by a Greek inscription, reading: TRO\KP\kHEAPINH, or the Season Spring, a guilloche and scrolling to the right,
Winter: 33¾ in. x 40 in. (85.7 cm. x 101.6 cm.)
Summer: 40¼ in. x 34 in. (102.2 cm. x 86.4 cm.) (2)

來源

with Fallani, Rome, 1975.

榮譽呈獻

G. Max Bernheimer

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拍品專文

Depictions of the Seasons were a popular subject on mosaics throughout the Roman world from the 1st century and continuing through to the early Byzantine period. They connoted cosmic harmony and the hope of renewal. According to Blanchard-Lemée, et al. (Mosaics of Roman Africa, pp. 48-49), the popularity of the seasons on mosaics "could be attributed first to their regenerating power, which guaranteed a fecundity and abundance of nature that were also supposed to extend to the houses that were decorated in this fashion, as well as to the people living in them."