Corinthian column capital

Corinthian column capital showing a highly eroded and badly chipped surface that prevents from a proper reading of both the handling of the relief and the decorative features. There remain the two crowns of acanthus leaves (h. first crown: 9 cm; second crown: 14 cm) enveloping the kalathos (h. of kalathos with rim 22 cm); these are hardly legible, yet one can detect the grooves flanking the central spine which, on the leaves of the second crown, stop halfway without reaching the bottom of the capital, as well as the drop-like voids visible also in the calyx leaves.

The cauliculi, slightly bent, have shallow vertical grooves and a convex rim with reversed sepals outlined by small drill holes; from these spring the calyx leaves, again with a ridged surface, that supported the volutes and the helices, of which, though badly eroded, are still recognizable the plain strips ending in projecting coils; the helices touch each other in the centre of the capital under the abacus (h. 6 cm). An oval shaped leaf takes the place of the stem supporting the abacus rosette, which is partially preserved with its large central button incised though strongly eroded. The upper part of the abacus has a square shape and is worked with a toothed chisel.

Though its poor state of preservation makes a proper reading difficult, the capital can nevertheless be chronologically framed between the end of the I and the II century for the presence of some characteristic features, namely the oval leaf in place of the rosette’s stem, but also the vertical drop-like shape of the voids, that indicates the search for optical effects and the subsequent progressive loss of plasticism in the Julio-Claudian age.