Sosibios Vase
- Title:
- Sosibios Vase
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Sosibios (attributed by signature in Greek on vase)
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 50 BCE
2009 (image)
- Site:
- possibly Rome (original)
- Location:
- Warehouse
possibly Rome (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0322
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 270
322 - File Name:
- CCC_0322.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 78 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Roman, after Greek
- Style/Period:
- Roman Late Republican, in Neo-Attic style
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (original) - Subject:
- Artemis (Greek deity)
Hermes (Greek deity)
Apollo (Greek deity)
Bacchantes - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 76 x 33 (rim) x 40 (body) (centimeters, height x diameter x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast of a late Republican, marble volute krater in neo-Attic style held in the Louvre. The vase, a pastiche of Greek styles, is signed by its sculptor Sosibios, a Greek artisan in residence in Rome in the second half of the 1st c. BCE. The decorative krater depicts on its belly a procession of three revelrous maenads dancing to the music of a panther skin-clad flute-player and to the fully-draped Apollo, who plays the lyre. A nude dancing youth with helmet, dagger, and shield (Waffentanzer) also shares in the revelry. Depicted in the center of side A is an altar topped by a large, conical flame flanked by Hermes on the viewer's right and Artemis on the viewer's left. Hermes wears a short cloak, is bearded, faces the altar, and holds a caduceus in his right hand. Artemis is fully draped, wears a quiver on her back, holds a bow in her left hand, and grips a deer by the leg with her right, dragging it toward the altar. The upper part of the vase is decorated with an egg and dart pattern along the rim, a vegetal register, ivy at the neck, gadrooning at the shoulder, and a modified guilloche pattern above the figures on the belly. Below the belly is additional gadrooning, and on the foot is a lotus bud register and more egg and dart decoration. The high-flung handles are decorated with rosettes in the volutes and swan's head terminals at the shoulder of the vessel. The original is in excellent condition. This cast has suffered some damage at the foot of the vessel and is chipped at the rim. The vase was held in the French royal collection from 1692 (the reign of Louis XIV) until it was appropriated 1797 by the Louvre during the French Revolution.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
Ma 442 - Bibliography:
- Werner Fuchs, Die Vorbilder der neuattischen Reliefs. Jahrbuch des deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Suppl. 20 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1959), 172 no. 6, pl. 20
Dagmar Grassinger, Römische Marmorkratere, Monumenta Artis Romanae, XVIII (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1991), 183-5, no. 25, figs. 7, 24, 25 and pl. 16-21
see also the Louvre's online catalog - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Paris, Louvre (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.