Roman Marble Frieze Fragment Roman Marble Frieze Fragment Roman Marble Frieze Fragment Roman Marble Frieze Fragment Roman Marble Frieze Fragment Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment
Roman Marble Frieze Fragment

Roman Marble Frieze Fragment

SKU: HQ.0112

Origin: Mediterranean
Circa: 1st Century AD to 3rd Century AD
Dimensions: 38" Width (96.5 cm) x 10.5" Height (26.6 cm) on stand 
Medium: Marble

This substantial marble architectural fragment is a skillfully carved classical frieze presenting two heads of Medusa with acanthus leaves and the fluting of a column capital between. The Medusa images are well preserved featuring wild, tousled locks, chubby cheeks, full lips, sharply defined eyelids and serpentine knots under the chin. All graphic elements are executed in high relief which signals to us that the complete composition would have been intended for a Roman temple or a monumental sarcophagus. 

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Art Market, France. Private Collection, New York, formed in the 1960s-1970s. Private Collection, New York, prior to 24 October 2003. Artemis Gallery, Louisville, Colorado, Exceptional Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic, 21 February 2019, Lot 64. New York Private Collection.

A very large fragment with losses to the two heads, their serpentine hair, and their high-pointed facial features, and losses to the fluted column and acanthus leaves between them as shown. Abrasions to faces, coiffures, and other high pointed areas. Still remarkable to find a section of this size and clarity in the carving.

Renderings of Medusa by the ancients were traditionally used to ward off evil; hence they were ideal for temples as protectors of the gods as well as sarcophagi intended to protect the deceased for all eternity. The depictions present in our own architectural fragment are similar in style to the grotesque, disk-shaped death masks of older gorgoneia. Akin to the Medusa Rondanini, which appears to borrow the idealized likeness of Athena of Velletri, wreathed in decorative snakes and delicate owl wings. They offer captivating expressions of Chthonic dread and death mixed with Olympian beauty and cunning.

For a discussion of other friezes with Medusa heads read the article, "Two Medusa-Head Friezes", The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal: volume 1, 1974. This article discusses marble fragments with heads of Medusa at the British Museum, the Oslo National Gallery, and the Getty Museum.

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Roman Marble Frieze Fragment

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