A Pair of Etruscan Bronze Attachments, circa early 5th Century B.C.

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Auction Closed

December 7, 04:32 PM GMT

Estimate

50,000 - 70,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Another Property

A Pair of Etruscan Bronze Attachments

circa early 5th Century B.C.

each in the form of lion skin-clad Heracles on the left and Iolaus on the right wielding clubs over their prey, one depicting the Erymanthean Boar, the other the Hind of Keryneia, volutes with small palmette terminals surmounting a large pointed palmette below.

Height 10.8 cm.

Mathias Komor, New York, inv. nos. I.514 and I.515
Clarence Day, Memphis, acquired from the above on February 24th, 1978 (Sotheby's, New York, Antiquities from the Collection of the Late Clarence Day, December 7th, 2010, no. 15, illus.)
acquired by the present owner at the above sale

For an almost identical attachment depicting the Keryneian Hind hunt in the Vatican Museums, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, see S. Reinach, Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, vol. IV, 2nd ed., 1913, p. 320, no. 2 (line drawing from W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, vol. 1,2, 1886-1890, p. 2265). Also see A. de Ridder, Les Bronzes antiques du louvre, Paris, 1913-1915, pl. 100 (Reinach, op. cit., vol. V, 1924, p. 98, nos. 1-2), two examples representing the same labours of Herakles as the present ones.

For a basin handle in the form of two fighting warriors, each with a similar palmette below, see S. Haynes, Etruscan Bronzes, London, 1985, no. 153. Similar subjects and compositions, also in openwork, can be found on the feet of Etruscan cistas or other vessels (e.g. D.G. Mitten and S. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World, 1967, no. 192).