A MARBLE SEASON SARCOPHAGUS, ROMAN IMPERIAL , CIRCA A.D. 280-290

carved in high relief with a female portrait bust within a central circular medallion flanked by four winged and nebris-clad erotes each personifying one of the Four Seasons and standing next to a krater with two confronted birds on the rim, Winter as Attis holding a fragmentary bough and two ducks and wearing a short chiton and Phrygian cap, his krater filled with olives and olive-tree leaves, Spring carrying a fragmentary flower and wearing a flower wreath, his krater filled with flowers, Summer carrying a fragmentary sickle and wearing a wreath of corn sheaves, his krater filled with ears of grain, Autumn carrying a basket and a bunch of grapes and wearing a wreath of grapes and vine leaves, a fruit-filled krater at his feet, a female personification of Earth, attended by the four Seasons reclining below the medallion, each side carved in shallow relief with a large fruit-filled krater between two fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals; the portrait bust recut in the Middle Ages or in the Renaissance.

Marchese Ugo della Stufa, Signa, near Florence, prior to 1743
Colpi Collection, Rome
Barsanti, Rome
Joseph Brummer Gallery, New York, 1938

I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, September 6 – December 1, 1996, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, January 3 – March 9, 1997, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 6 – June 5, 1997

Antonio Francesco Gori, Inscriptionum antiquarum graecarum et romanarum quae in Etruriae urbibus extant, Vol. III, 1743, p. 131ff., pl. 40
Andrew C. Ritchie, Albright Art Gallery. Catalogue, 1934, p. 174 (illustrated)
Blue Book of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy 1931-1942, 1943, p. 122 (illustrated)
Andrew C. Ritchie, ed., Albright Art Gallery. Catalogue of the Paintings and Sculptures in the Permanent Collection, Buffalo, 1949
George Hanfmann, The Season Sarcophagus in Dumbarton Oaks, Cambridge, Mass., 1951, Nos. 435, 436
C. Andresen, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, Vol. 76, 1955, p. 293
N. Casini, "Il sarcofago di Apricula," Archeologia Classica, Vol. 9, 1957, p. 78
M. Lawrence, "Season Sarcophagi of Architectural Type," American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 62, 1958, p. 278
George Hanfmann, Gnomon, Vol. 31, 1959, p. 538
Hans Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch. Geschichte und Bedeutung einer römischen Porträtform, Olten, 1961,
p. 35, n. 8
Cornelius C. Vermeule, "Roman Sarcophagi in America: A Short Inventory," Festschrift für F. Matz, Mainz, 1962, p. 101
Cornelius C. Vermeule, "A Greek Theme and its Survivals: The Ruler’s Shield (Tondo Image) in Tomb and Temple," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 109/6, 1965, p. 384 ff., Fig. 41
Robert Turcan, Les sarcophages romains à représentations dionysiaques. Essai de chronologie et d’histoire religieuse, Paris, 1966, pp. 80, 301, 346, 563, 595, 606, 610f., 613, and 619
Hellmut Sichtermann, "Beiträge zu den Meerwesensarkophagen," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1970, p. 231, n. 68
Konrad Schauenburg, "Die Sphinx unter dem Clipeus," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1975, p. 286, n. 28
A. Eberle, "Un sarcophage romain unique en son genre," Hefte des Archäologischen Seminars der Universität Bern, Vol. 2, 1976, p. 17, No. 2
G. de Luca, I Monumenti antichi di Palazzo Corsini in Roma, Rome, 1976, p. 102
Peter Kranz, "Zu den Anfängen der stadtrömischen Saülensarkophage," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, Vol. 84, 1977, p. 353, n. 29
W.N. Schumacher, "Hirt und Guter Hirt," 30 Suppl. Römisches Österreich. Jahresschrift der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Archäologie, 1977, p. 250, n. 103
Steven A. Nash, with Katy Kline, Charlotta Kotik and Emese Wood, Albright-Knox Gallery. Painting and Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942, New York, 1979, p. 76 (illustrated)
Guntram Koch and Hellmut Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage, Munich, 1982, p. 219, n. 22, and p. 222
Peter Kranz, Die Jahreszeiten-Sarkophage. Entwicklung und Ikonographie des Motivs der vier Jahreszeiten auf kaiserzeitlichen Sarkophagen und Sarkophagdeckeln (Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs, vol. 5, part 4), Berlin, 1984, pp. 29f., 35, 41-45, 51, 57, 93, 96f., 99, 113, 115, 117, 127, 131, 142f., 167, 173, 192-193, No. 31, and pls. 22:1, 23, 31:4, and 84:7
Diana E.E. Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, eds., I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, catalogue of the exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, New Haven, Conn., 1996, pp. 208-209, No. 164

For related examples see G. de Luca, I Monumenti antichi di Palazzo Corsini in Roma, Rome, 1976, No. 55, pls. 86-87, P. Kranz, Hefte des Archäologischen Seminars der Universität Bern, Vol. 3, 1977, p. 43ff., and H. Brandenburg, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Vol. 93, 1978, p. 312, n. 64.