South Italian Sculpture: Altar Fragment
Inv. No.: 95.075
Provenance: South Italy (Metaponto)
Date: 6th century BC
Height: 117mm
Length: 220mm
A fragment of a small, rectangular altar with a projecting ledge, square in profile, at the top and bottom. The top ledge is decorated with a low relief meander pattern; the bottom is largely damaged or abraded. The main decoration consists of a low-relief scene of a lion attacking a deer. Such scenes were popular in the Archaic period. The clay is a light buff colour on the surface and pink-orange on the interior.
Function:
Used for funerary purposes; it was common to place small altars in or on tombs in Southern Italy.
Manufacture:
A mould-made piece.
Decoration:
- The top framing ledge is decorated with a low relief meander pattern.
- The main scene is in higher relief. A profile deer with a horizontal, branching antler flees to the left. A lion, also facing left, attacks the deer, its wide jaws grasping the deer hindquarters. The lion is muscular with a shaggy mane (the shagginess indicated by short lines radiating from its upper edge) and a long tail that curls elegantly behind its rear legs, ending under its belly.
Bibliography:
Langlotz, E., The Art of Magna Graecia: Greek Art in Southern Italy and Sicily, London, Thames and Hudson, 1965, 33, 261.
Comparanda:
Boardman, J., Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period, London, Thames and Hudson, 1978, Fig. 216, 9-13 (frieze slabs from the Temple of Athena at Assos showing attacking lions).
Carratelli, G. P. (ed.), The Western Greeks, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 1996, Catalogue nos. 97, 98 I and III, 99 (small terracotta altars from Sicily or South Italy; 6th-5th century BC).
Langlotz, E., The Art of Magna Graecia: Greek Art in Southern Italy and Sicily, London, Thames and Hudson, 1965, Plate 32 (small terracotta altar with a scene of a lion killing a bull; c. 500 BC).