Cylindrical base with dancers
Cylindrical base with dancers
3D
Published 2017-04-11T18:33:17+00:00
This work is a Roman base, reworked in modern times and reused as a garden vase. The decoration is composed of winged female dancing figures separated by a vegetal motif formed by an intertwining of palmettes and acanthus ornaments.
The representation is inspired by Spartan dancers, the "saltantes Lacenae" cited by Pliny and derived from the model of the dancing figure codified by the sculptor Callimachus in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The innovation brought by the Greek artist to this imagery was to emphasise the delicacy of the dance by associating the movement of the dancer's body with the folds in her costume. Callimachus' model was frequently imitated during Neo-Atticism in the decoration of bases, reliefs and candelabras, while the vegetal elements recall Hellenistic art, especially toreutics, metalwork decoration.
On the basis of iconographic comparisons to works such as the stucco decorations of the Villa della Farnesina, the base may be dated to the Augustan period, end of the 1st century BC - beginning of the 1st century AD.
In the 17th century, the work was restored, with the addition of ancient marble pieces among which we can make out a fragmentary inscription, later integrated with gesso in the upper part.
| Date published | 11/04/2017 |
| Complessità | Very Easy |
| Title | Cylindrical base with dancers |
| Date | 1st Century BC - 1st Century AD |
| Accession | Inv. 8620 |
| Period | Hellenistic |
| Medium | Marble |
| Credit | Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection |
| Place | Palazzo Altemps |
