A Roman Marble Figure of Dionysos, Eastern Mediterranean, circa early 3rd Century A.D.

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Lot Closed

December 17, 01:45 PM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from an American Private Collection

A Roman Marble Figure of Dionysos, Eastern Mediterranean

circa early 3rd Century A.D.

standing with his weight on the right leg, the now missing part of his raised left arm separately carved and once dowelled on above the elbow, and wearing a panther skin tied on his right shoulder, a cluster of grapes preserved on the left shoulder, his head turned to the right, with parted lips and deeply drilled pupils and inner canthi, his centrally parted hair with finely drilled individual strands and surmounted by a wreath of ivy leaves and grapes cascading to the shoulders, the god’s hair and grape cluster exploiting a natural blue-gray vein in the marble, the back roughly worked; no restorations.

Height 31.8 cm.

Professor William F. Larsen, Boca Raton, Florida (Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, May 16th, 1980, no. 272, illus.)
Sotheby's, New York, December 17th, 1996, no. 97, illus.
Christie's, New York, December 10th, 2004, no. 609, illus.
acquired by the current owner at the above sale

PUBLISHED

Heide Gregarek, "Untersuchungen zur kaiserzeitlichen Idealplastik aus Buntmarmor," Kölner Jahrbuch, vol. 32, 1999, p. 211, no. D4, fig. 15.

For other sculptures exploiting coloured veins in the marble see an unfinished figure of Europa from Aphrodisias (J. van Voorhis, The sculptor’s workshop, Aphrodisias, vol. 10, 2018, p. 86, no. 38, pl. 43f.), and a torso of Triton in Istanbul (Voorhis cit., p. 56, pl. 56,1).