Bonhams 1793 : A Roman bronze figure of dancing Lar

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5 Oct 2011 10:30 BST London, New Bond Street
Antiquities
Back to auction 18947

A Roman bronze figure of dancing Lar
Circa 1st Century B.C./A.D.
The sizeable figure standing on tiptoe, dancing forward with his right leg advanced, his head turned to the left to look up at his raised left arm, once holding a rhyton or cornucopia, his right arm at the side, now missing, wearing a tunic with long apoptygma (overfold), the edges of the drapery billowing with movement, a thick sash wound about his waist, looped and tucked at either side, the ends flowing out, wearing detailed open-toed boots with the animal skin lining folded over the tops, wearing a high radiate-style wreath in his hair, curls clustered around his forehead, the eyes inlaid with silver, 9in (22.9cm) high, mounted

Sold for £109,250 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance:
Swiss private collection, Ticino, 1980s.
Hesperia Art Ltd, New York, early 1990s.
Japanese private collection, acquired in 1998.

Literature:
The Lares were the family gods, protectors of the house, and images of them were placed in household shrines or lararia. They are usually depicted with attributes of cornucopia or a rhyton in the raised hand, and a libation bowl such as a patera or phiale in the lowered hand. Drawing on Greek art and the traditions of Rome's past, Augustus linked the cults of the Lares to that of the Genius of the Emperor between 12 and 7 B.C. and it is likely that this bronze dates to that period.

This type is thought to have its origins in the Hellenistic dancer type created by the painter Theodotus in the 2nd Century B.C.: D.G. Mitten & S.F. Doeringer, Master Bronzes of the Classical World, Exhibition Catalogue, 1967, p.263. Certainly the energy of movement in this bronze seems to reflect the vibrancy of Hellenistic art. For a similar size and quality Lar, cf. Exhibition Catalogue, A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1994, pp.316-8, no.164.

The upright nature of the wreath and the longer hair of this figure are rather unusual, and have some similarities with images of Alexander the Great in the guise of Helios. For another Alexander-like bronze Genius, cf. C.C. Vermeule & J.M. Eisenberg, Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes in the Collection of John Kluge, New York and Boston, 1992, no.88-51.