Rare Roman Spiral Marble Column

**Originally Listed At $1250**

Roman, Imperial Period, ca. 1st to 5th century CE. A narrow marble column sitting on a wide, conical foot and expertly carved to form a spiral pattern. The marble presents creamy hues, with some small areas of grey and red inclusions; the surface is slightly rough, allowing the sparkle of larger crystals to show. A column of this size would have been part of domestic architecture in a "domus", a family home, similar to those we know best from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Size: 7" L x 9.75" W x 19.75" H (17.8 cm x 24.8 cm x 50.2 cm)

The Roman domus was a structure designed for a family to live in a city or town; what a domus looked like depended upon where it was built and by whom, but many of them utilized columns as central to their design. The domus was built around a central area, the atrium, which in some architectural styles - notably the Tetrastyle and the Corinthian - had columns that surrounded atria to carrying the weight of the ceiling (contrast this to the Tuscan style, which used rafters). One of the finest known examples of these is from the House of Menander in Pompeii, with its remaining columns framing the central atrium pool that collected rainwater and channeled it into a cistern for household use. The atrium was also the central meeting place in the home to receive visitors. The room also would have the household shrine and be well appointed and decorated, as the public face of the family. Columns like this one would have witnessed some of the most important moments for a Roman family.

Provenance: Ex-Hagar Collection, Ex-private NC collection acquired in the 1980's

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#119280
Condition Report: A fragment with surface wear and abraded areas as shown.