sculpture;
throne
- Museum number
- 2001,0508.1
- Title
- Object: The Biel Throne
- Description
-
Roman marble throne, known as 'The Biel Throne', from the prohedria of the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, as built by Herodes Attikos between 140 and 143 AD, on the proper right side is a relief showing an olive tree and a table on which there rests a Panathenaic amphora, containing an olive spray and three wreaths, beneath the table rest two palm branches, the front legs are in the form of owls and the left side is undercorated (as the throne was designed to be set flush against another of which illustrations survive).
- Production date
- 140-143
- Dimensions
-
Height: 0.70 metres (approx.)
-
Width: 1 metres (at rear)
-
Depth: 0.60 metres
- Location
- On display (G69)
- Acquisition date
- 2001
- Acquisition notes
- All marble seating had been removed from the Panathenaic Stadium by the middle of the 15th century and this piece had been removed to the Vescovaro, the Bishop's Residence, in Athens sometime before May 1801 when the Archbishop of Athens gifted it to Mr and Mrs William Hamilton Nisbet.
In 1802, while being shipped to Britain, the piece was lost with the wreck of the Mentor and other pieces from the Elgin Collection off of Kythera, salvaged in 1804 it reached Britain via Malta. The piece remained in the Hamilton Nisbet collection at Biel, Lothian, until the house was sold and its contents dispersed in 1958. Mr Julian H Brooke inherited the throne in 1983.
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 2001,0508.1
