Part 4 L’antiquité tardive

Corinthian capital with foliate head

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Corinthian capital with foliate head
Date de création
End of the 3rd century
Material
Marble
Dimensions
H. 49,5 x l. 76 x P. 17,2 (cm)
Inventory number
2000.411.1

In Chiragan, a series of capitals similar to this one had been created for pilasters, and another unfinished capital is now kept in the museum’s reserves. Here, a head surrounded by foliage surmounts two rows of acanthus leaves. The head itself resembles a mask, and is located at abacus level, above the central acanthus of the calathus (basket), in lieu of the canonical rosette of the Corinthian order.

Head motifs had already been used to decorate capitals in Pharaonic Egypt, as evidenced by the famous « hathoric » style E. Bernhauer, Hathorsäulen und Hathorpfeiler : altägyptische Architekturelemente vom Neuen Reich bis zur Spätzeit, Wiesbaden, 2005.. A different composition, in line with Greco-Roman sensibilities, once again reunites both elements in the West during Classical Antiquity. This recurring ornamental theme can be found in Etruria, Vulci and Sovana, and in the Greek cultural context of southern Italy, in Campania or Apulia, in Taranto, Arpi and Canosa, which boast numerous examples P. Pensabene, « Il tempio ellenistico di San Leucio a Canosa, » M. Tagliente, M. Torelli (eds.), Italici in Magna Grecia : lingua, insediamenti e strutture. Atti del convegno di Acquasparta, 30-31 maggio 1986, Venosa, 1990, pp. 269–337, 283-285 et 302-306, fig. 13, 18, Pl. CXV-CXIX.. In the 1st century BC, capitals and figured acroteria in Glanum (Saint-Rémy-de-Provence), Vernègues, Nîmes, Toulouse and more recently Narbonne (Colonia Narbo Martius), among others, bear witness to this practice of associating figures with a crowning architectural ornament E. von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle, Berlin, 1962, 109, no299-300 et fig. 534-535 et 538, 112, no313 et fig. 555-556 ; C. Picard, « Acrotères, antéfixes, chapiteaux hellénistiques à décor mêlé, humain et végétal : de Samothrace à la vallée du Pô et à Glanum, » Revue Archéologique, 2, 1963, pp. 113–187, en partic. p. 168-174, fig. 46, 48 et 49 ; Musée Saint-Raymond, Palladia Tolosa, Toulouse Romaine. Exhibition, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse, November 1988 - March 1989, Toulouse, 1988, no 256, daté du Ie siècle de n. è. ; S. Agusta-Boularot, « Les ‘ chapiteaux à têtes’ de Château-Bas à Vernègues (13). Premières réflexions sur les chapiteaux figurés pré-augustéens de Gaule du Sud, » V. Gaggadis-Robin, P. Picard (eds.), La sculpture romaine en Occident : nouveaux regards. Actes des rencontres autour de la sculpture romaine 2012, Arles-Aix-en-Provence, 2016, pp. 275–290, p. 283, fig. 10-12, p. 286-288, fig. 17 et 18.. Capitals sporting foliate masks were apparently produced in Asia Minor from the end of the 2nd century and during the following century N.L. Hirschland, « The Head-Capitals of Sardis, » Papers of the British School at Rome, 35, 1967, pp. 12–22, en partic. p. 14.. The style and patterns of these oriental productions are said to have been taught in sculptors’ workshops in the West, and initially in Rome during Late Antiquity, and the workshop commissioned to contribute to Chiragan’s lavish decor was one of them.

P. Capus

Bibliography

  • Beckmann 2020 S.E. Beckmann, « The Idiom of Urban Display: Architectural Relief Sculpture in the Late Roman Villa of Chiragan (Haute-Garonne), » American Journal of Archaeology, 124, 1, pp. 133–160
    .     p. 145-146, fig. 11
  • Cazes et al. 1999 D. Cazes, E. Ugaglia, V. Geneviève, L. Mouysset, J.-C. Arramond, Q. Cazes, Le Musée Saint-Raymond : musée des Antiques de Toulouse, Toulouse-Paris
    .     p. 81
  • Hirschland 1967 N.L. Hirschland, « The Head-Capitals of Sardis, » Papers of the British School at Rome, 35, pp. 12–22
    .     p. 14
  • Joulin 1901 L. Joulin, Les établissements gallo-romains de la plaine de Martres-Tolosane, Paris
    .     pl. IV, no 6 B
  • Massendari 2006 J. Massendari, La Haute-Garonne : hormis le Comminges et Toulouse 31/1 (Carte archéologique de la Gaule), Paris
    .     p. 240, fig. 98
  • Picard 1963 C. Picard, « Acrotères, antéfixes, chapiteaux hellénistiques à décor mêlé, humain et végétal : de Samothrace à la vallée du Pô et à Glanum, » Revue Archéologique, 2, pp. 113–187
    .
  • von Mercklin 1962 E. von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle, Berlin
    .
  • Agusta-Boularot 2016 S. Agusta-Boularot, « Les ‘ chapiteaux à têtes’ de Château-Bas à Vernègues (13). Premières réflexions sur les chapiteaux figurés pré-augustéens de Gaule du Sud, » V. Gaggadis-Robin, P. Picard (eds.), La sculpture romaine en Occident : nouveaux regards. Actes des rencontres autour de la sculpture romaine 2012, Arles-Aix-en-Provence, pp. 275–290
    .
  • Musée Saint-Raymond 1988 Musée Saint-Raymond, Palladia Tolosa, Toulouse Romaine. Exhibition, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse, November 1988 - March 1989, Toulouse
    .

To cite this notice

Capus P., "Corinthian capital with foliate head", in The sculptures of the roman villa of Chiragan, Toulouse, 2019, online <https://villachiragan.saintraymond.toulouse.fr/en/ark:/87276/a_2000_411_1>.