A Roman Ivory Plaque Fragment, circa 3rd Century A.D.

finely carved with a seated satyr holding up a parapetasma or overhead drape next to a kneeling maenad, both looking in the same direction, possibly at a figure of Dionysos, a gadrooned krater and a bundle of fruit tied together with a lagobolon at his feet, the satyr wearing a himation draped over his lap and goat skin tied around his neck, the maenad a long chiton and himation tied around her waist; the plaster backing inscribed "RIEFSTAHL" in pencil.

Rudolf Adelbert Meyer-Riefstahl (1880-1936), Paris
by descent to his son Rudolf Meyer Riefstahl (1929-2011)
by descent to the present owner

The Detroit Institute of Art, 1973-2003

According to family tradition, when Rudolf Meyer-Riefstahl's art collection was seized by the French government as belonging to an enemy alien and sold at auction in two separate sales after WWI, one of his friends in the Paris art market bought the present plaque and gave it back to him as a present. A close study of the two sale catalogues (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Liquidation des biens Meyer-Riefstahl, ayant fait l'objet d'une sequestre de guerre, April 23rd-24th, 1923, and February 4th-5th, 1925) did not allow the plaque to be identified, which might have been sold as part of a group lot or misidentified.