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Repoussé plaque with a winged goddess holding lions
Greek, East Greek
Orientalizing Period
660–620 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Rhodes, Kameiros
Medium/Technique
Electrum, repoussé
Dimensions
3.7 x 2 cm (1 7/16 x 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Henry Lillie Pierce Fund
Accession Number99.392
CollectionsJewelry, Ancient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment
DescriptionA winged woman is represented holding a lion in each hand. Her hair falls straight to her shoulders, but lacks the horizontal striations seen in similar plaques. Her wings are details with curving lines, and the waist and foot of her dress are raised slightly. The lions both turn their heads and snarl towards their captor. Beneath each lion, on either side of the goddess’s feet, are simple rosettes with 8 petals each. The entire plaque is bordered by a braided pattern. A cylinder (itself decorated with simple banding lines) at the top of the plaque may once have been strung, so that the object could hang from a necklace or pectoral. Perforation in the composition might have allowed it to be sewn to clothing. All of the upper right corner and part of the upper left corner of the plaque are now missing.
ProvenanceBy date unknown: W. H. Forman Collection; inherited from him by Mrs. Burt and then, about 1889, by A. H. Browne; by 1899: with Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 13 Wellington Strand, London, W.C. (sale of the Forman collection, June 19-22, lot 397, partial; said to have come from Kameiros, Rhodes); 1899: with Edward Perry Warren; 1899: purchased by MFA from Edward Perry Warren for $ 32,500.00 (this is the total price for MFA 99.338-99.542)