Relief with the head of a griffin

about A.D. 51–52 or later

Medium/TechniqueMarble, rough Greek from the northern islands or western Asia Minor

DimensionsHeight: 24 cm (9 7/16 in.)

Credit LineCharles Amos Cummings Bequest Fund

Accession number59.337

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsSculpture

Collections

Ancient Greece and Rome

Provenance1562, probably excavated at the Piazza di Sciarra, Rome; 1576, recorded at the Piazza di Sciarra by Pierre Jacques [see note 1] and later dispersed [see note 2]. Possibly in a British private collection (Duke of Buccleuch?) [see note 3]. 1952, sold by Spink and Son, London, to Peter Wilson of Sotheby’s, London [see note 4]. 1959, sold by J. J. Klejman (dealer; b. 1906 – d. 1995), New York, to Cornelius C. Vermeule, III (b. 1925 – d. 2008), Boston; 1959, sold by Cornelius Vermeule to the MFA for $1275 [see note 5]. (Accession Date: June 9, 1959)

NOTES:
[1] Salomon Reinach, L’album de Pierre Jacques, Sculpteur de Reims, Dessiné à Rome de 1572 à 1577 (Paris, 1902), pl. 29. On the history of excavations at this site, see A. A. Barrett, “Claudius’ British Victory Arch in Rome,” Britannia 22 (1991), pp. 1-19, esp. pp. 4-5.

[2] According to the account of Flaminio Vacca, many of the reliefs found were sold to Giovanni Giorgio Cesarini, and the rest (some 136 carts full) were purchased by Vacca himself. See “Notes on Roman Historical Sculptures,” Papers of the British School at Rome 3 (1906), pp. 220-221, which suggests that the sculptures drawn by Jacques “may not have been acquired by the Cesarini.”

[3] See C. C. Vermeule and M. B. Comstock, Sculpture in Stone (MFA Boston, 1976), p. 147, cat. no. 237. According to Cornelius Vermeule at the time of the acquisition, he had first seen the relief in London in 1952 and it was "from a British country house."

[4] According to Cornelius Vermeule at the time of the sculpture's acquisition.

[5] This was the price paid for MFA accession nos. 59.336 and 59.337.