Fragment of an Ionic or Composite Capital (KM2426)

inv. no. 2426
Purchased by F. W. Kelsey in October 1900, from F. Romano, the same person that sold him cat. no. 11
max. h. 0.15 m; w. 0.18 m; d. 0.12 m
Pentelic marble
Broken on all sides and back. Traces of gray pozzolana in several places. Rightmost egg and dart heavily abraded. Scattered chips.

The fragment consists of an egg-and-dart band over a bead-and-reel band.

N. Norman reconstructs an approximate diameter of 0.37 m for the original capital immediately below the bead-and-reel band, approximately the upper diameter of an Ionic columm. If this capital were of the Ionic order, using Vitruvius's proportions for an Ionic column set forth in Book 3.3.11-12, she calculates that the column height (eustyle) would have been 4.22 m. Koeppel hypothesizes that this fragment of an Ionic or composite capital may have come from the lower order of the structure to which he assigns the architectural fragments discussed in KM2424.

Bibliography

Koeppel (1980) 20, n. 30; 29, fig. 19; unpublished notes of N. Norman from July 1980 in the files of the Kelsey Museum.

Catalogue entry by Elaine Gazda

Copyright © 1997 Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan. All rights reserved.