A ROMAN MARBLE CINERARY URN

This cinerary urn is carved on three sides with an elaborate motif in high relief. Each panel is centered by a mythical winged creature - a hippocamp on the front panel and griffins on the sides - with a fruit-laden garland suspended below, tied to the underslung horns of the ram heads at the corners. The motif of garlands suspended from ram heads finds its antecedent in the public art commissioned by Augustus, intended as a symbol of Rome’s prosperity. However, by the time this urn was created, it had become a general popular adornment in the private sphere, for urns and altars in particular (for the same motif on the funerary altar of Q. Fabius Diogenes and Fabia Primigenia, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 25.78.29, see pp. 42-32 in E.J. Milleker, ed., The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West). While the inclusion of winged griffins on the sides of urns is common (see pl. 73, no. 745 and pl. 78, no. 521 in F. Sinn, Stadtrömische Marmorurnen), the hippocamp is a comparatively infrequent addition, although similar beasts can be found on so-called sea creature sarcophagi (see the sides of a sarcophagus once on the Rome art market, no. 4, figs. 11-13 in H. Sichtermann, “Beiträge zu den Meerwesensarkophagen,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1970, Heft 2).