Roman table leg (NAMA 5706)
In the National Archaeological Museum of Athens there is a very elaborately worked marble Roman table leg from the 2nd century.
The central theme of the ensemble is the youthful god Dionysus . He stands facing the viewer with his naked body . The head, wreathed with vines and grapes, with chest-length curly hair, is turned slightly downwards and to the right. The left arm is missing roughly from the elbow. The right arm is raised, in his hand he is holding a rhyton in the shape of half a panther . The arm of Dionysus rests on the head of a Pan . The much smaller Pan shown is also shown naked. The legs are hairy and goat, but the left leg is absent like the right arm. He is holding a lagobolon in his left hand . On the floor next to Dionysus' right foot there is a round basket from which a snake is escaping. To the right of the head of Dionysus and above the head of Pan, a third figure is shown with a small satyr climbing up the vines. In his right hand he holds a sickle, behind him another lagobolon and a goat skin hang from the vine.
The table leg was the only support for a table. The actual table leg is a square column, the statuary decorations are on one of the sides, which is thus identified as the front. You didn't have to bear the burden. Apart from the skin areas of the three figures, there are still yellow and red paint residues on the rest of the marble. The marble was extracted in a quarry near Dokimeion in Asia Minor . The entire oeuvre was also created in a workshop in Asia Minor. It is dated to the year 170. A more precise origin is unclear, the table leg was confiscated and came into the collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, where it has the inventory number 5706.
literature
- Nikolaos Kaltsas : Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens , The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2002 ISBN 0-89236-686-9 , p. 349.
