Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
A ROMAN MARBLE FUNERARY PLAQUE INSCRIBED FOR CAIUS IULIUS LYRIS AND MARCUS VIPSANIUS PAPA, 1ST HALF OF THE 1ST CENTURY A.D.
Auction Closed
July 2, 04:42 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A ROMAN MARBLE FUNERARY PLAQUE INSCRIBED FOR CAIUS IULIUS LYRIS AND MARCUS VIPSANIUS PAPA, 1ST HALF OF THE 1ST CENTURY A.D.
carved with five lines of Latin inscription reading C(aius) Iulius / Lyris // M(arcus) Vipsanius / Agrip(p)inae Caes(aris) / l(ibertus) Papa (“Caius Iulius Lyris. Marcus Vipsanius Papa, freedman of Agrippina, [wife] of the emperor [i.e. Germanicus]”), each name carved in a different hand, the reverse finely carved in shallow relief with the frontal figure of a bird standing with outspread wings on a spindly candelabrum.
18 by 43.5 cm.
from one of the Vigna Codini columbaria in Rome
recorded in 1877 with the owner of the Vigna Codini as part of a group of 40 inscriptions "lying on the wet floor in a wine cellar" (introd. to CIL VI 5744-5812)
a handwritten dealer’s(?) label in the upper right corner reads "Roma 1897 / Ipogeo degli Scipioni/ e colombario di Pomponio Hypas"
estate of a French private collector (Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, Collin du Bocage, October 12th, 2018, no. 229bis, part)
acquired by the present owner at the above sale
Published
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. VI: Inscriptiones urbis Roman Latinae, part 2, Berlin, 1882, no. 5772
Heikki Solin,"Varia Onomastica XV," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 156, 2006, p. 308 (dates the inscription of C. Iulius Lyris to the Augustan or early Tiberian period)