Corinthian column capital

Corinthian column capital of great formal elegance and refined carving. The cylindrical kalathos has a thin sharp rim and highly arched sides over which develop two crowns of eight acanthus leaves; these have five lobes divided by vertical drop-like voids obtained with the drill, and made of long oval points (four on the median lobes and three in the lower ones) outlined by thin incised lines. The leaves of the first crown show the midrib with a thin central incision and with a pair of lateral, deeper grooves widened at the top and at the bottom; two other grooves open up in the lobes forming an oval concavity that grants softness and plasticism to the leaf. In the second crown, higher than the median line of the capital, the leaves have a thin, central incision that reaches almost the bottom of the capital, while the two lateral grooves stop just after the middle of the leaf. In the treatment of the foliage there is great formal neatness and a search for plastic values. The cauliculi, slightly diagonal, have deep, yet thin parallel flutings reaching the rim, on which a delicate crown of sepals is carved; the calyxes have long and tight acanthus leaves, marked by deep diagonal incisions and drop-shaped voids, that support the helices and the volutes. These have a feebly concave section with the margin underlined by thin incisions that run along the whole of the slightly projecting coil, as visible on the only preserved volute. A great deal of technical skill is shown in the projection of the volutes, where a deep cavity is left between the plain kalathos and their shaft supporting the abacus corners, thus creating a well balanced play of perspective and volume. The stem, faintly shrunk at the bottom and decorated by thin vertical lines, arises from a small calyx composed of a pair of well outlined open leaves and holds the abacus rosette, the latter here preserved in the form of a daisy with thick long petals and a serpentine button in the middle. The inclined kalathos rim strongly projects over the central part of the curved sides of the abacus, which is deeply carved with a cavetto and a plain ovulo molding. We must note that the capital has letters or numerals, carved upside-down on the cavetto, whose reading is: MVII. Some Corinthian exemplars from Ostia show letters incised on the cyma of the abacus’ sides, while on the Corinthianizing capitals of the “Piazza d’Oro” in Hadrian’s Villa the signs are carved on the upper surface of the abacus. Like on our exemplar, the letters are written upside-down, as they might be the abbreviated name of the sculptor who had worked the piece when this was laying in a reversed position. We must remark that all the capitals from Ostia with abbreviated signatures belong to the first half of the II century and to the Hadrianic age. As an alternative, the engravings may represent numerals connected to some kind of system for the computation of artefacts. Our piece retains all the canonical features of the Corinthian capital correctly arranged and proportioned within the composition, it boasts a very careful and elegant handling, as well as a delicate plasticism in the treatment of the lobes, of the stem and of the abacus rosette; moreover the design is executed in a highly accurate fashion. The capital belongs to a typology that appeared in Rome during the Flavian age (in the Basilica and in the Peristyle of the Domus Augustana) and whose use continued to spread in the first decades of the II century AD, that is in the Hadrianic age, always with a favour for deep carving and light and dark plays, together with a constant attention for details.