THE COLUMN, ROMAN, 8TH OR 9TH CENTURY

This column is an extraordinarily rare and well-preserved reminder of Christian Rome during the Byzantine Papacy, from the 6th-8th centuries. The low-relief carved details, of scrolling vine and other decorative elements, such as the crosses and floral or ‘pinwheel’-shaped motifs are echoed in many other examples of period. These include remaining fragments in Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome as well as in Rome’s Crypta Balbi and the Muzeo Nazionale del’Alto Medioevo. A further example, a larger relief panel, can be found in the Duke University Museum of Art (now the Nasher Museum of Art), Durham, North Carolina. And it can be noted in reconstructions of Sta. Maria Cosmedin in Rome as it was in the 8th century, that the columns supporting the chancel screen of the transept, like the present lot, did not have capitals and fitted seamlessly into the larger architectural program.