Archaeology | Capitals | Corinthian | Corinthian column capital | Artwork profile

White marble h. 50 cm; w. 54 cm Antique artefact (II century AD?) with extensive modern reworking


Report

Corinthian column capital

Corinthian column capital with two crowns of eight acanthus spinosus leaves. The leaves show a flat midrib carved in relief, shadowed by deeply drilled grooves, and the lobes separated by long drop-shaped voids and divided in three spiky points, the latter worked with a central incision which grants them a V-shaped section. The leaves’ contour has not been not fully chiselled out and, especially in the second crown, a layer of plain, uncarved material remains visible behind the leaf itself. At either side of the central folia spring the cauliculi which are characterized by different decorations: on one face of the capital they have a thick plain rim and bear cuspidated incisions with spiral pattern, on two sides they are covered by flattened flutings ending in a polilobed rim, while on the fourth face they even differ from one another, with one bearing the same ornament of the previous side and the other a thin plain rim and an equally plain shaft. The volutes and helices are made of a flat strip curling into small coils worked in slight projection; the abacus is moulded with a fillet and a plain fascia, and it is decorated by a flower shown in profile, with long petals springing from a semicircular button; on one side, the flower’s bulk has been severed and on the new surface the date 1662 has been engraved.

On the whole the capital shows a rather crude and schematic handling, with plains deeply divided by means of drilled channels and with a form of abstract shadowing rendered by drilling random holes near some of the lobes’ points. It is a working manner that finds no direct parallel amongst the antique artefacts, and nor does the different ornamentation of the cauliculi, in particular the one consisting of a spiral pattern made of cuspidated incisions. Since the date engraved on side of the abacus testifies of at least one remodelling that took place in modern times, there is then the possibility that the stylistic peculiarities just mentioned may also belong to such period, a possibility that might also give an explanation for the awkward remains of the leaves contour still visible behind the foliage.

Considering the extensive reworking undergone, it is difficult to set the capital in a precise chronological frame, however the general proportions, the dimension and arrangement of both volutes and calyx leaves, still stretched out and harmoniously proportioned, allow us to suppose that the piece was originally carved around the II century AD.