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Marble Head of a Horse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Ad. Michaelis
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Extract

The horse's head, two photographs of which appear on Pl. XXIV., was procured in the neighbourhood of Tarentum and presented to the British Museum by J. Reddie Anderson, Esq.

This presentation is a new and pleasing indication of the interest felt by private collectors in the British Museum, and of the increasing feeling that only in public collections can ancient monuments be protected from risk; a thesis which I have already had occasion in my Introduction to Ancient Marbles in Great Britain to maintain and to enforce by many sad instances.

I comply with the request of the Editors of this Journal in accompanying the photographs with a few remarks.

According to a note by Professor Percy Gardner, the quality of the marble is not very fine. The length of the head, from end of mane over forehead to lip, is 0·46 m., the height from bottom of cheek-bone to top of head 0·34 m. The lower lip is wanting, the ears have been broken.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 3 , November 1882 , pp. 234 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1882

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References

page 234 note 1 [The special thanks of the Editors are due to Prof. Michaelis for his compliance with their wish, though he was able to judge of the head only from photographs, not, as he would of course have wished, from actual inspection.—Ed. J.H.S.]

page 235 note 1 Comp. the large relief of the Villa Albani (Zoega, , Bassiril. di Roma, i. Pl. 51)Google Scholar, the fragment of an Attic sepulchral relief in the Museum at Berlin, (Arch. Zeitung, 1863, Pl. 169)Google Scholar, the monument of Dexileos, (Rev. Archéol., 1863, Pl. 15)Google Scholar, a fragment in the Vatican Museum (Mus. Chiaramonti, ii. Pl. 45), etc.

page 235 note 2 Newton, , Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, ii. Pl. 11Google Scholar. These μικρὰ ἀσπιδίσκια were called φάλαρα; see schol. Hom. Il. II. 105. Jahn, , Die Lauersforter Phalerae, 1860, p. 2Google Scholar.

page 235 note 3 Comparaison entre la tête d'un des chevaux de Venise et la tête du cheval d'Elgin du Parthenon, 1818. (First printed in the Annals of the Fine Arts.) The excellent etching of the two heads is by Thomas Landseer. Similar criticisms are to be found in Lawrence's Elgin Marbles. I am sorry not to have been able to compare casts or good engravings of these heads as well as of the famous horses' heads of bronze preserved in the Museums of Florence (Galeria di Firenze, iv. Pl. 84, 85) and Naples, (Mus. Borbon., iii. Pl. 10Google Scholar, Guhl, , Pferde-Bildung, p. 52Google Scholar, Gargiulo, Raccolta); but most of all it would be worth while to compare the excellent bronze horse found in Trastevere in 1849, which is one of the chief ornaments of the Capitoline Museum but has never been published. Cf. the remarks on different ancient horses in Ruhl, , Ueber die Auffassung der Natur in der Pferde-Bildung antiker Plastik, 1846, p. 46Google Scholarseq.

page 239 note 1 Cat. Gr. Coins in Brit. Mus.: Italy pp. 162, 163. Carelli, , Num. Ital. Vet. Pl. civ. 25–28Google Scholar.