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Putto fragment, overview. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Putto Fragment
Report 2: Sculpture from Sardis: The Finds through 1975
(1978)
Cat. 177
- Date
- Late 2nd or early 3rd C. AD, Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx61.003
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Sculpture, Sarcophagus
- Sculpture Type
- Sarcophagus
- Site
- Sardis
- Findspot
- Village of Sart Mahmut (Sardis).
- Description
A putto, walking l. supports a garland of fruit and leaves and a roughly carved taenia. His outer (l.) arm crosses his body to hold up the garland. Within the garland crescent is a raised bump, too severely damaged to identify for certain, but it may have been a lion’s head. The front has claw chisel marks; only the putto was polished.
Deep drilling in the fruit and taenia suggests a date in the late 2nd or early 3rd C. The fruit is rather crudely carved but on the other hand the putto is nicely modeled, with careful attention to fleshy folds and muscles.
- Condition
Marble.
Putto preserved from knees to neck. Upper part of garland preserved. R. end of stone a straight edge, and the end of the block. Cement adhering to back, probably from reuse.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.275; W. 0.61; Th. without figure 0.16, with figure 0.20.
- Comments
- See Also
- Bibliography
- For putto in similar pose (reversed), Toynbee, Hadrianic School, pl. XLIII:2. For Asiatic garland sarcophagi in general, ibid., 202ff.: Lehmann-Hartleben-Olsen, Dionysiac Sarcophagi Baltimore, 67-70; Ward-Perkins, Sarcophagi 98-104.
- Author
- NHR