Societe d’Etudes Latines de Bruxelles

Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection by Gisela M. A.RichterReview by: P. P. BoberLatomus, T. 16, Fasc. 3 (Juillet-Septembre 1957), pp. 552-553Published by: Societe d’Etudes Latines de BruxellesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41521018 .

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552 COMPTES RENDUS

Gisela M. A. Richter, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Anti- quities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Cambridge, Har- vard University Press, 1956), 77 pp., 27 pll., $ 5.00.

With this handsome volume, the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in Washington inaugurates a series which will eventually embrace all categories of its rich holdings. The ancient collection, like that of later periods, consists primarily of works of art acquired by M. and Mrs. Bliss before Dumbarton Oaks was transferred to Harvard University, judiciously enlarged since 1940 by additional purchases and gifts. Although by no means large (forty-seven objects are here discussed, including two reliefs from Persepolis and a few other pieces not strictly classical) or even representative, it is marked by its quality and by the outstanding archaeological interest of a number of works. Several of these are already well known : the Early Classical bronze statuette of « Epimetheus » formerly in the Warren collection (n° 14), here interpreted as Hephaistos ; the Barberini Seasons sar- cophagus (n° 12) to which Hanf mann has devoted an exhaustive monograph ( Dumbarton Oaks Studies, II, 1951) ; and the bronze figurine of an emaciated man (n° 17) for which Miss Richter offers a new explanation, taking the Perdik in its inscription as reference to the proverbial « Perdikeian foot » rather than as a patronymic.

Miss Richter has classified her material, whether of major or minor art, according to medium : - Objects in stone, Objects in metal, Pottery (a very fine Athenian black-figure amphora and two Roman pieces), Paintings (a small panel from a wall painting and a Fayoum portrait), Mosaics (six examples from Antioch), and Glass. In her thorough catalogue raisonné, each item receives full documentation and more. Indeed, for certain pieces, her treatment becomes a full exposition of « l'état de la question ». Thus the discussion of a splendid replica of that widespread portrait type usually identified as Menander but also as Virgil or even Theokritos or Kallimachos (n°. 4), is a valuable summation of all the evidence and arguments. The weight of the author's opinion is on the side of Menander, quite justly in view of the completely Greek quality of the hair rendering with a tectonic feeling for clarification of the shape of the skull.

Similarly, a very important inscribed chalcedony cameo with high relief busts of Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius (n° 11) provides opportunity for Miss Richter to re-examine in the light of this new document diverse portraits which have been put forward as Diocletian. Such is the expansive format of this catalogue, that the comparative material reproduced with the gem consists of no less than ten illustrations.

One finds the same amplitude throughout the plates, with multiple views of most objects as well as numerous comparative figures. Another excellent example of their value concerns a bronze statuette of a maiden in archaistic style (n° 16) which has been questioned by one author as a modern forgery after an almost identical figurine

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COMPTES RENDUS 553

in Vienna. Being able to reproduce the sculptures in question from all sides, and to include photographs of an indisputably modern forgery of the type in silver, Miss Richter can substantiate fully her contention that the Dumbarton Oaks replica, like that in Vienna, is a Roman copy of an archaizing Greek original.

There are other works of special interest which might be mentioned here. A small portrait head (n° 9) of the early fourth century A. D. in which retrospective elements of style refer to Julio-Claudian pre- cedents, is an important addition to the growing number of sculptures which have been recognized in recent years as manifestations of a classicizing revival in Gonstantinian portraiture. The relief ornament, incrusted with silver, on a bronze jug of Egyptian style or inspiration n° 19), remains enigmatic, although a general sepulchral connotation is suggested for the storks holding snakes in their beaks, the confronted medallions, nimbed sphinxes, and curious child with nimbus and foliate extremities. A bronze statuette of a draped youth (n° 18), considered by some to be Early Christian, by the author and others Italic of the third to first century B. G., exhibits such disparate and conflicting characteristics of style that we may prefer to share the opinion of one scholar - quoted by Miss Richter in her commendable thoroughness - who doubts that it can be antique at all.

A blue glass cameo (n° 47), cast from the famous Augustus and Roma in Vienna, is studied with great care in comparison with the original as well as with glass casts made in the Vienna collection in the early nineteenth century, to determine whether it is of Roman or recent date. The Appendix by Marie Farnsworth gives a complete technical report based on spectrographic and chemical analysis of fragments from the cameo in question and from a similar cast by Pichler. The results certainly argue against the possibility that this important piece could be modern. From the lack of any explicit data concerning the composition of Renaissance glass casts, the question of alternatives other than classical still remains answered only by implication.

With the high standard set by this first publication of the projected series, we may look forward to subsequent volumes covering the exten- sive mediaeval material for which Dumbarton Oaks is chiefly know.

New York University . Institute of Fine Arts .

P. P. Bober.

Einar Gjerstad, Early Rome . Part II : The Tombs (Lund, Gleerup, 1956), 327 pp. in-4°, 249 figg., 95 cour, suédoises.

Poursuivant dans la série in-4° des Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae la publication de tous les documents archéologiques et litté- raires relatifs à l'histoire de Rome depuis l'époque préurbaine jusqu'à la fin de la royauté - publication qui avait débuté par un volume sur les recherches stratigraphiques au Forum et dans l'habitat super- posé à la nécropole de la Sacra Via (cf. Latomus, t. XIV, 1955, pp.

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