burial-chest
- Museum number
- 1805,0703.165
- Description
-
Marble sepulchral chest of Decimus Albiccius Licinius and Antonius Liberalis, decorated with bull's heads, sirens, birds and oak leaves. The cover has two birds pecking at a bowl of fruit.
- Production date
- 100-140 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 21.59 centimetres
-
Width: 35.56 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Cook 2013, nr. 269:
'A square cinerary urn, seventeen inches high; on the front at each side are two heads of the Bacchus Ebon, with bulls horns, from whence hangs a festoon of fruit surrounding a tablet, and two sparrows pecking at each other; below on each side is a Harpy, or a bird with a woman’s head; in the center of the pediment is a basket full of fruit at which two other sparrows are pecking. Purchased at Sir C. Frederick’s sale. 1786. In the tablet is the following inscription.
D • ALBICCI • LICINI •
ANTONI • LIBERALIS •
(TY 12/3, street drawing room 17).
Reported to have been found at Cimiez near Nice in the seventeenth century (CIL V, 7925), but also listed, apparently in error, among the inscriptions from the city of Rome (CIL VI, 11300).
Purchased from Gerrard at Sir Charles Frederick’s sale. At Sir Charles Frederick’s sale in May 1786, Townley spent a total of £40.10s.6d. for ‘various lots’ (TY 8/5/1). The prices of individual items are not recorded.
Date:
Mid-Antonine (Sinn).
Drawings:
* Townley drawings 2010,5006.242 and 295.
Bibliography:
- Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1808), V.36;
- Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, V, pl. 10, fig. 1;
- A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Vol. III (London 1904), 342-3, no. 2351;
- E. Espérandieu, Receuil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine IX (1925), 85, no. 6681;
- F. Sinn, Stadrömische Marmorurnen (Mainz am Rhein, 1987), 240, no. 616, pl. 90 a;
- CIL VI, 11300, but see also CIL V, 7925#.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.165
