relief;
funerary equipment
- Museum number
- 1845,0424.6
- Description
-
Marble funerary relief framed by pilasters and an architrave. Two male figures recline on a couch - a bearded man holding a bowl in his left hand who places his right hand on the shoulder of a youth; a nude male cup-bearer stands with a jug on the right side of the relief, and on the opposite side is a young man wearing a tunic and chlamys (cloak) leading a horse.
At the bottom of the relief is a Latin inscription reading 'Salenius Arcas (made this) for Aesculapius', a modern addition.
- Production date
- 300BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 57.15 centimetres
-
Width: 83.82 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- According to the Trustees Minutes 1837-40, fol. 209 this was 'Given to Mr Hamilton by Mons. Capredata [i.e. Capecelatro], Archbishop of Taranto'. This was previously registered as 1840,1114.6 though an Egyptian sculpture also given by Hamilton bears the same number and the register in MLA archives show that 1840,1114.1-6 are all Egyptian objects.
Smith, in his catalogue of Greek sculpture in the British Museum, suggested that this relief might commemorate a father and one or more sons, though added that the man with the horse and the younger one on the couch might be the same person. The relief was included in Thönges-Stringaris's seminal 1965 study of this kind of scene (1965, p. 87 no. 136 and pl. 17,2 and see 33-7 for discussion of terracotta and marble examples from the Taranto area). For a global survey of the phenomenon, see Draycott and Stamatopoulou 2016.
Bibliography:
Draycott, C. and Stamatopoulou, M. (eds) 2016, Dining and death. Interdisciplinary persepectives on the 'funerary banquet' in ancient art, burial and belief. Colloquia antiqua 16. (Leuven: Peeters).
Thönges-Stringaris, R. 1965, 'Das griechische Totenmahl', AM 80, 1-126.
- Location
- On display (G73/dc49)
- Acquisition date
- 1840-1845
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1845,0424.6
