Column-like support

Column-like support in Palombino marble, characterised by a shaft tapered towards the bottom, indented with flutings decorated by semicircular carvings, and ending both at the top and bottom with an embrasure underlined by a fillet. The lower part is missing. The non-smoothed upper surface has a circular hole pierced through the core of the shaft (now blocked) where a water-pipe was once placed. Thus, above the support there must have been a small basin or a labrum, at the bottom a plinth carved separately but now missing, and the whole composition was serving as a fountain.

Column-like supports were largely employed to hold tables, basins and labra, as well as statues and other objects. They can vary in shape, according to the single components’ proportions, without changing their support function. Thus, in such instances as this where the carried object is now missing, the presence of the pierced hole for the water pipe stands as the only element qualifying the artefact as a fountain stand.

Given the widespread use of these objects, their chronological frame goes from the I to the III century AD, although we must note that several examples stylistically close to ours can be found in Pompeii.