Lot 24
  • 24

A Marble Figure of a Satyr Holding a Wineskin, Late Hellenistic, circa 1st Century B.C., with circa 18th Century Restorations

Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 USD
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Description

  • A Marble Figure of a Satyr Holding a Wineskin, Late Hellenistic
  • Marble
  • Height as restored 50 1/2 in. 128.3 cm.; height of torso without the restorations 28 1/4 in. 71.75 cm.
standing with the weight on his left leg and holding a wineskin with both hands against his thighs; head, forearms, lower legs, support, and base restored in marble and removable at will.

Provenance

Baron Maximilian von Heyl, Darmstadt, and Pfauenmoos Castle (1844-1925), Berg, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland
Swiss private collection, Pfauenmoos Castle, Sankt Gallen, by descent (Cahn Auktionen AG, Auktion 7, November 3rd, 2012, no. 280, illus.)

Catalogue Note

The only other known example of this type, reversed and with slight variations, is in the Museo delle Terme, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. no. 72 (L. De Lachenal, in A. Giuliano, ed., Museo Nazionale Romano, vol. I, 2, 1981, pp. 344ff., no. 46; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/marbilderbestand/1032263); this figure, which the author dates to the early Roman Imperial period, matches the present one in all aspects, except for a goatskin tied over his chest and the angle of the wineskin against the thighs.

On another torso, found in Antioch-on-the-Orontes and now in the Hatay Archaeological Museum, inv. no. 1371, the wineskin rests diagonally over the abdomen and chest (J. Meischner, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, vol. 118, 2003, p. 302ff. pl. 13; C. Vermeule, "The Sculptures of Roman Syria," in Chr. Kondoleon, ed., Antioch: The Lost Ancient City, Princeton and Worcester, 2000, p. 99, fig. 14; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/411).

All other related figures of young satyrs with wineskin rest one of their feet on a support and balance the wineskin over one thigh (e.g. Museo archeologico nazionale, Naples: http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/12976, and Notizie degli scavi di antichita, 1920, p. 226, fig. 3), as do similar figures of older satyrs or Silenoi (M. Papini, "Sileno con otre di Palazzo Barberini," in Rivista dell'Istituto nazionale d'archeologia e storia dell'arte, vol. 56, 2001, pp. 21-46).

Wine-carrying marble figures of satyrs and silenoi, of which the overwhelming majority are shown holding the skin over their shoulder or under the arm, were often used as fountain figures, with a channel drilled through the wineskin to accommodate a lead pipe spouting water into a basin (see B. Kapossy, Brunnenfiguren der hellenistischen und römischen Zeit, Zurich, 1969, p. 30f.). This was the case for the example in the Museo delle Terme, but not for the present figure.

A close friend of Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin, Max von Heyl came from a wealthy family of industrialists in Worms. He married into a patrician family from Cologne, lived in Darmstadt, and with his wife Doris assembled a large art collection, which included Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, as well as Classical and Egyptian antiquities. He shared Schloss Pfauenmoos, the family retreat on the Swiss side of Lake Constance, with his brother Cornelius von Heyl zu Herrnsheim. Upon the death of Doris von Heyl in 1930, most of the couple’s art collection was sold at auction at Galerie Hugo Helbing in Munich in October of 1930. Among the von Heyl antiquities which can be found today in public collections are a very fine Roman marble portrait head of woman from the late 4th century A.D., now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 47.100.51 (http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/468214), a stunning head of Antinous, now in the National Museum in Warsaw, inv. no. 148919, and one of the finest mid-Hellenistic terracotta figures of Aphrodite, now in the Antikensammlung Berlin, inv. no. 31272 (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite_Heyl).