A Marble Strigillated Sarcophagus with Eros and Psyche, Roman Imperial, second quarter of the 3rd Century A.D.

of rectangular form, carved in front at each end with an erote holding a torch, the central panel decorated within an architectural frame with Eros and Psyche embracing, each of the short sides carved with crossed shields.

Don Paolo Prince Borghese (1843-1920), Villa Borghese, Rome
Émile Zola (1840-1902), Médan, acquired from the above in Rome in November 1894 (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Catalogue des objets d'art et d'ameublement, faïences et porcelaines, bois sculptés, marbres, vitraux, sièges et meubles, anciennes tapisseries, tableaux anciens et modernes, aquarelles, dessins, gravures, livres, manuscrits..., le tout dépendant de la succession de M. Émile Zola, March 9th-13th, 1903, no. 467)
estate of a French art dealer (Drouot, Paris, Piasa, Demeure d’un antiquaire et à divers, October 2nd, 2013, no. 78, illus.)

Maurice Guillemot, Villégiatures d’artistes, Paris, 1897, pp. 95-96
François Émile-Zola et Massin, Zola photographe, Paris, 1979, p. 31, fig. 64
François Émile-Zola et Massin, Zola Photographer, New York, 1988, pp. 8-9, figs. 10-12
Les Cahiers Naturalistes, vols. 57-58, 1983, p. 27
Evelyne Bloch-Dano, Chez Zola à Médan, St-Cyr-sur-Loire, 1999, p. 57
Thierry Liot, Les maisons d’écrivains en France de 1807 à 1914: histoire, architecture, décoration, Paris, 2001, p. 175
Alain Pagès and Owen Morgan, Guide Émile Zola, Paris, 2002, p. 124

As shown. Surface somewhat weathered, particularly the top half of the figural panels and the top of the heads of Eros and Psyche. Noses of erotes formerly restored in marble. Strigilation abraded on left panel. Note chips to proper right thigh of Eros and to his wing. There is a vertical stress crack encircling his proper left leg from below the hip. Stress crack running diagonally across the wing of Psyche. Two stress cracks running vertically across middle of the right short side. Loss on top of right short side with remains of two corroded iron pins. Stress crack running diagonally across right panel of strigilation. Minor stress crack on top left corner. Channel on top of left short side filled with mortar-like material. Four holes below rim, two with remains of iron corrosion. Wedge-shaped chip at bottom left side with what appears to be remains of an iron pin. Bottom of interior drilled for modern metal drain.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In late 1894, when visiting Rome with his wife in order to research his next novel (Rome, 1896) Émile Zola acquired the present sarcophagus together with several other ancient marbles belonging to Prince Paolo Borghese (É. Zola, Journal de Voyage à Rome, Monday, November 12th: "Le matin nous somme allés à la Villa Borghèse voir les marbres que nous voulons acheter;" Thursday, November 29th : "L'après-midi, j'ai payé mes dettes, en acquittant les factures de tous les objets antiques que j'ai achetés" (in Oeuvres complètes, ed. H. Mitterrand, vol. 7, 1968, pp. 1067 and 1114). The sculptures were cleared by French customs in December 1894 (see Zola's letter of December 28th, 1894: Correspondance, B.H. Bakker, ed., vol. 8, Montreal and Meudon, p. 195) and were delivered to him in Paris on January 1895; some of them he displayed at his Parisian apartment, others at his suburban house of Médan, close to the Seine river.

At Médan Zola used the present sarcophagus as a fountain basin placed below a large marble mask/waterspout. The ensemble was set against the facade and underneath the double staircase of the guest pavillion, next door to the main house. The writer had admired this type of arrangement in the courtyards of Roman palazzi and had even described it in his novel, where it served as a metaphor to illustrate the decadence of Rome. “Turned into a trough (auge), this marble sarcophagus, weathered, greenish, received a thin stream of water pouring from a large tragic mask built into the wall" (Rome, Paris, 1896, p. 44). As a dedicated amateur photographer Zola loved to use the sarcophagus-fountain as a backdrop for several of the photographs he took of his family and friends (see Émile-Zola et Massin, op. cit., 1979 and 1988).

At Zola's 1903 estate sale the Musée du Louvre purchased several of his ancient marbles (lots 460, 463, and 464). The most important one was an inscribed Roman funerary relief (Louvre inv. no. Ma 3493;  V. Kockel, Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten, 1993, p. 139, H3, figs. 48c and 50a-d). Lot 465, a column sarcophagus panel with Dionysiac subjects, went through several French private collections until it reappeared at auction at Sotheby's, New York, December 10th, 2009, no. 42. It now belongs to the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art in Geneva. The marble theater mask used as a waterspout was acquired at Zola's sale by his friend the painter Ernest Hébert (1817-1908), and is now in the Musée Hébert near Grenoble. The whereabouts of the present lot were unknown until now.

Approximately ten to twenty strigillated sarcophagi of this type, featuring Eros and Psyche in the center of the front panel, have survived (G. Koch and H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage, Munich, 1982, p. 214). For a very similar example see Baussy et Morot, Cannes, Vente aux enchères des sculptures de la Villa Faustina à Cannes, November 27th, 1923, no. 45, which also features an erote at each end, though in this case with downturned torches, and theater masks surmounting the pilasters rather than palmettes. Other similar examples include a sarcophagus at the Museo di Villa Vecchia at the Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome (R. Calza, Antichità di Villa Doria Pamphilj, Rome, 1977, no. 264, pl. CL; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/601401), one with an elaborate aediculum in the Astor Collection at Cliveden in Great Britain (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/4818), and one at the Campo Santo in Pisa (inv. no. A 6 int; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/215517). Unlike the present example, the central figures adorning the Astor sarcophagus bear the most similarity to the canonical depiction of Eros and Psyche embracing in the round, all deriving from the same Hellenistic original (F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique, New Haven and London, 1982, no. 26, fig. 98).