Pilaster Capital with Leda and the Swan in the British Museum, May 2014

Object type: pilaster-capital

Museum number: 1907,0118.2

Description: Corinthian marble pilaster-capital with Leda and the swan.

Culture/period: Roman

Date: 3rd C (early)

Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Crete

Materials: marble

Dimensions: Height: 43.18 centimetres, Width: 34.29 centimetres

Curator's comments: Cretan provenance mentioned in list of sculptures sent by Thomas Abel Brimmage Spratt to Birch of the BM. They were destined for his own collection. The list is kept in the Middle East department in a bound volume of letters, "Correspondance, New Series, Volume 12", letter 5493. Letter dated April 6th, 1858 but there is a reference to a crate of antiquites from Crete in a letter of 1854, so the sculpture was found prior to that date.

More:

Bibliography: Rawson 1984 fig. 38a bibliographic details

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