Marine thiasos from the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus
- Title:
- Marine thiasos from the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
late 2nd to early 1st c. BCE
2009 (image)
- Site:
- Rome, Italy (original)
- Location:
- Warehouse
Rome, Italy (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0320
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 289
289 (marker on bottom)
320 - File Name:
- CCC_0320.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 78 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Roman
- Style/Period:
- Roman Republican
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in relief (original) - Subject:
- Nereids (Greek mythology)
Triton (Greek deity) - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 80 x 160 x 4-11.5 (centimeters, height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast panel of a section of the marine thiasos relief from the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, housed in Munich. Overall, the scene depicts the wedding of Neptune and Amphitrite, and is populated by tritons, nereids, and a number of sea creatures. The relief series formed part of a rectangular sculpture base that has been associated with a sculptural group that stood in the Temple of Neptune in Rome. This panel belongs at one of the short ends of the rectangular base. Here, three figures--two nereids flanking a triton--ride on and intertwine with a sea monster (cetus). The triton is in the foreground. His nude, muscled torso is twisted to face the viewer's right and his head is twisted back to look left. He is beardless and has mid-length, wavy hair. He reaches forward across his chest to hold the reins of the sea monster. The nereid at the left of the panel sits with her back to the viewer. Her drapery has slipped to expose her hips and buttocks. Her hair is bound and her head is in profile facing the viewer's right. She extends her left arm to point to the right. The body of the nereid at the right of the panel is obscured. Her head, with bound hair, is depicted in three-quarter view facing right. The cast is broken into several fragments with some fragments missing at the viewer's right side of the panel. The cast was intended to sit flush with the long side of base, instead of at a right angle as in the original. It joins with ID no. 22. In this photo the head of the triton and that of the nereid on the viewer's right have been transposed, and the head of the sea monster is missing from the lower right (viewer's) corner of the cast. All marine thiasos cast panels are accounted for in Cornell's cast collection. The sculptors of this scene appear to have drawn inspiration from the reliefs of the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon. Another multi-panel relief from this base depicts a military census and a suovetaurilia (the sacrifice of a pig, ram, and bull) and is among the earliest of preserved Roman historical reliefs. It is held in the Louvre (Ma 975).
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. 239 - Bibliography:
- Florian Stilp, Mariage et Suovetaurilia: Etude sur le soi-disant 'Autel de Domitius Ahenobarbus' (Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider, 2001)
Heinz Kähler, Seethiasos und Census. Monumenta Artis Romanae. (Berlin: Verlag Gebr. Mann, 1966)
Nancy H. Ramage and Andrew Ramage, Roman Art, 3rd ed. (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2000), 75-76
online catalog at www.louvre.fr - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Munich, Glyptothek (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.