EARLY AUGUSTAN PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Details

A ROMAN MARBLE ARCHAISTIC RELIEF FRAGMENT WITH LETO
EARLY AUGUSTAN PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.
17 ¼ in. (43.8 cm.) high

Provenance

James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), Paris, acquired by 1841.
Catalogue des objets d’art et de haute curiosité, antiques, du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance, qui composent les collections de feu M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, C. Pillet and E. Escribe, Paris, 21 March 1865, lot 7.
Baron Valentin de Courcel (1838-1917), Villa Faustina, Promenade de la Croisette, Cannes, acquired by 1893.
Antiquities, Sotheby's, New York, 5 June 2013, lot 20.
Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above.
The Devoted Classicist: The Private Collection of a New York Antiquarian, Christie's, New York, 6 October, 2022, lot 20.

Literature

J.J. Dubois, Description des antiques faisant partie des collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, Paris, 1841, p. 2, no. 4.
A. Michaelis, "La raccolta de Courcel a Cannes," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, vol. 8, 1893, pp. 181-182, no. 16.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Originating from an archaistic style Kitharodic relief, this example portrays Leto walking to the right and lifting her mantle, an exact parallel to a more complete fragment in the British Museum (inv. no. 1816,0610.190; see no. 775 in A.H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, vol. I). The type portrayed Leto and her two children, Artemis and Apollo, walking towards Nike, who pours a libation into Apollo’s patera. The tall column behind Leto would have supported a votive tripod. The scene is preserved on a handful of examples, the most complete of which is in the Villa Albani, Rome, no. 351 in E. Simon, “Apollon/Apollo,” LIMC, vol. II.

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