CIRCA LATE 1ST-EARLY 2ND CENTURY A.D.; WITH 18TH CENTURY RESTORATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO BARTOLOMEO CAVACEPPI (1716-1799)

Details

A ROMAN MARBLE CINERARY URN
CIRCA LATE 1ST-EARLY 2ND CENTURY A.D.; WITH 18TH CENTURY RESTORATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO BARTOLOMEO CAVACEPPI (1716-1799)
10 ¼ x 10 ¼ x 7 in. (26 x 26 x 18 cm.)

Provenance

with Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716-1799), Rome.
with Thomas Jenkins (1722-1798), Rome, acquired by 1778.
Probably Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi (1717-1781), Bologna.
Museo Bianconi, Bologna, by 1874.
with Giuseppe Pacini, Florence, by 1882.
French private collection, Marseille, acquired in the 1970s.
Antiquities, Sotheby's, New York, 3 June 2015, lot 56.
with Ariadne Galleries, New York.
Acquired by the current owner from the above, 2016.

Literature

L. G. Marini (1742-1815), Inscriptiones christianæ Latinæ et Græcæ ævi Milliarii conlegit digessit adnotationibusque auxit Caietanus Marinus a Bibliotheca Vaticana item a scriniis sedis apostolicæ. Duæ partes (Vat.lat.9122), fol. 9r.
G. Piranesi, Vasi, candelabri, cippi, sarcofagi, tripodi, lucerne, ed ornamenti antichi disegnati, Rome, vol. 2, 1778, pl. 89.
W. Henzen, G. B. de Rossi and C. Hülsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. VI, part V: Inscriptiones falsas urbi Romae attributas comprehendens, Berlin, 1885, p. 242, no. 3495.
E. Bormann, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. XI, part I: Inscriptiones Aemiliae, Etruriae, Umbriae Latinae, Berlin, 1888, p. 19, no. 107.
T. Ashby, “Thomas Jenkins in Rome,” in Papers of the British School in Rome, vol. VI, no. 8, 1913, p. 493.
M. Squire, J. Cahill and R. Allen, eds., The Classical Now, London, 2018, pp. 170-171.

Exhibited

Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins, 2016-2023 (Inv. no. MMoCA842).
London, Somerset House, The Classical Now, 2 March-28 April 2018.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The front is carved in relief with two swans perched on baluster-shaped bases and holding the ribbons of a large fruit-laden garland in their beaks, with four birds picking at the fruit. The recessed panel is engraved with three lines of Latin inscription: Ortes Eros Synotho donum. ‘Ortes Eros to Synothus, a gift.' W. Henzen, G. B. de Rossi and C. Hülsen (op. cit.) p. 242, condemn the inscription as falsa, not in the sense of a ‘forgery’, but as non-Roman. The inscription is not funerary and Ortes and Synothus are uncommon names, suggesting it is likely that it was added later by Cavaceppi, probably when the cinerarium became an object of display on a plinth, as depicted in the etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778).

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