A Roman Marble Cinerary Urn inscribed for Lucius Calvinus Pubianus Sabinus, circa late 1st Century A.D., engraved and restored by Gianbattista Piranesi (1720-1778)

VAT reduced rateUK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Auction Closed

July 4, 03:04 PM GMT

Estimate

50,000 - 80,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property of a Gentleman

A Roman Marble Cinerary Urn inscribed for Lucius Calvinus Pubianus Sabinus

circa late 1st Century A.D., engraved and restored by Gianbattista Piranesi (1720-1778)

carved in front in high relief with a festoon of leaves, fruit, and flowers hanging from two ram's heads and surmounted by an eagle with outspread wings, two birds picking at the fruit from below, the framed panel engraved with five lines of modern Latin inscription reading D(is) M(anibus)/L(ucio) Calvino Pu-/biano Sabino/L(ucius) Tucius Coc(ceius)/Nat(o) benemer(enti) ("To the Spirits of the Departed. Lucius Tucius Cocceius (made this) for Lucius Calvinus Pubianus Sabinus, his well-deserving son"), each side with a palmette in low relief, the gabled lid (probably from a funerary altar) with echeloned leaf-shaped tiles and arched front carved in high relief with the nude bust of a young boy, his writing implements to his left, his faithful dog resting its paw on his right shoulder, the urn resting on an ornate stepped Carrara marble base.

49 by 35 by 33.4 cm.

Please note that the correct title lot 104 reads: "A Roman Marble Cinerary Urn inscribed for Lucius Calvinus Pubianus Sabinus, circa late 1st Century A.D., engraved and restored by Gianbattista Piranesi (1720-1778)". This is how the cataloguing appears on the current online version. The title in the printed catalogue is incomplete.

probably Vicomte Jacques Amable Gilbert de Saint Pardoux (1752-1810), Château de Pennautier, France, acquired in Rome on his Grand Tour in 1779

M. de Pennautier, by descent, by 1883

French private collection, by descent from the above (Sotheby's, London, December 4th, 2018, no. 42)

acquired by the current owner at the above sale

Published

Gianbattista Piranesi, Vasi, candelabri, cippi, sarcophagi, tripodi, lvcerne ed ornamenti antichi, Rome, vol. 2, 1778, pl. 82, dedicated "al Signor Cavalier Arthur Boyer amatore delle belle arti" (http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/buchseite/475379)

Robert Mowat, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaires de France, 1883, p. 201

Bulletin épigraphique de la Gaule, vol. 3, 1883, p. 153 (said to belong to M. de Pennautier and labeled as having being discovered in Pompeii in 1780)

Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes, 1884, p. 206

Répertoire des travaux historiques contenant l'analyse des publications faites en France et à l'étranger sur l'histoire, les monuments et la langue de la France pendant l'année, vol. 3, 1886, p. 727

Eugen Bormann, Wilhelm Henzen, Christian Hülsen, eds., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. VI, part. V: Inscriptiones falsas urbi Romae attributas comprehendens, Berlin, 1885, no. 3508 (p. 243) and addenda et corrigenda (p. 255, ad. loc.)

Elizabeth Angelicoussis, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculpture (Monumenta artis Romanae, vol. 30), Mainz, 2001, p. 156, no. 54, note 2

Friederike Sinn, "Römische Marmorurnen für den Sammlergeschmack: Fallbeispiele von Ergänzungen un Fälschungen", in Kathrin Barbara Zimmer, ed., Rezeption, Zeitgeist, Fälschung - Umgang mit Antiken, actes du colloque international de Tübingen du 31 Janvier au Février 2014, Rahden/Westf., 2015, p. 207

"Exposition des Arts décoratifs au palais de l'Industrie," Paris, 1883