Ulla Lindser (Munich), Sale Cat., 1970, no. 49 (ill.); Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 98 (October 1974) no. 5 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 87.

1974.07

Fragment of a Roman Frieze Plaque (Campana Relief)

Purchased. Max. ht 34cm; max. width as preserved 24.5cm; max. thickness 4cm; max. depth of relief 1.5cm.

The piece is reconstructed from two fragments: the break runs from just below the uppermost spiral, through the upper wing and face of the figure, then through the upper part of the lyre. Restored are the top of the wing, the back of the figure’s hair, the face and the neck, the left arm of the lyre, part of the cross-piece and some of the top of the right arm of the lyre. There is some incrustation on the surface. Rather dark orange-buff clay.

The scene has a winged figure playing a lyre, right (presumably one of a confronted pair). The figure rises from a tendril that comes from the bottom right. From the skirt springs an acanthus leaf from which runs a spiralling tendril that terminates in flower-heads. Above is a zone of linked palmettes.

Campana-reliefs are so called after the Marchese Giampetro Campana who acquired a substantial collection of these plaques in the earlier half of the nineteenth century and in 1852 produced an illustrated publication of them. The reliefs were made principally to decorate and protect the timber entablatures of temples and tombs but were also used on non-sacred buildings; they belong to the area of Rome. They range in date from late Republican to Hadrianic or even Antonine times, and, since their moulds could be re used and re-worked, the finer details of their chronology present difficulties, the more particularly because certain themes were recurrent. In this case the form of the palmettes and the treatment of the floral-work suggest an early Imperial date, as do the classicising aspects of the figure.

A key element for their chronology is part of the frieze of the Temple of the Divine Julius, constructed by Augustus in the Roman Forum of the site of Caesar’s pyre. It is decorated with a very similar winged figure rising from floral work. Augustus’ own ‘local’ temple, the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, was itself decorated with terracotta plaques of this type. Importantly there is also a large collection of fragments of these plaques from the House of Octavian on the Palatine: see P. Pensabene, R. Mar, E. Gallocchio, “Scenografia architettonica e decorazione nella Casa di Ottaviano sul Palatino”, in: XVIII CIAC: Centro y periferia en el mundo clásico / Centre and periphery in the ancient world S. 6. La helenización del mundo antiguo. Roma. The hellenisation of the ancient world. Rome (Merida 2014) 653-657, with useful further references.

The principal publications dealing with these reliefs are G. Campana, Antiche opere in plastica (Rome 1852); H. von Rohden and H. Winnefeld, Architektonische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit (Stuttgart 1911); the very useful discussion by A.H. Borbein, Campanareliefs. Typologische und stilkritische Untersuchungen (RM suppl.14, 1968); and S. Tortorella, “Le lastre Campana. Problema di produzione e di iconografia”, in: L’Art décoratif à Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome 1981) 61-100. There is also a good series of illustrations in Niels Breitenstein, Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Danish National Museum (Copenhagen 1941) where pl. 118 no. 886 is a fragment seemingly of the same type as ours. See also P. Rendini, “‘Lastre Campana’ nell’Etruria marittima centro-settentrionale”, Prospettiva 79, 1995, 24-35. More specifically on the plaques from the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, see G. Carretoni, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Rendiconti 44, 1971-72, 123-139, Bollettino d'arte 1973, 75-87, and then his “Die ‘Campana’-Terrakotten vom Apollo-Palatinus-Tempel”, in: Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik (Exhib.Cat. Berlin, 1988) 267-272. For an illustration of the frieze fragment from the Temple of Divus Julius, see Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik 373-4 no. 206 (ill.) (with useful refs.). Examples from a context dated by the Great Fire of Rome in ad 64 are published by A. Caravale, “Lastre Campana di tipo arcaistico dallo scavo della Meta Sudans,” Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 95, 1993, 71-82. There has been further discussion in M. Angle and A. Germano (eds), Museo e territorio V (Roma 2007).

For some interesting broader discussions, see the symposium proceedings L’ Art décoratif à la fin de la République et au début du Principat (École française de Rome, 55, Rome 1981); M.J. Strazzulla, “Iconografia e propaganda in età augustea: le lastre Campana”, in: E. Herring, R. Whitehouse and J. Wilkins (eds), Papers of the Fourth Conference of Italian Archaeology. The Archaeology of Power. Part I (London 1991) 241-252; K. Bøggild Johannsen, “Campanareliefs im Kontext. Ein Beitrag zur Neubewerbung der Funktion und Bedeutung der Campanareliefs in römischen Villen”, Facta 2, 2008, 15-38. For Campana and his collection, see G. Nadelini, “La villa-musée du marquis Campana à Rome au milieu di XIXe siècle”, Journal des Savants 1996, 419-463 (with further refs.).

The theme of figures standing among or rising out of plants and florals goes back well into the fourth century in Apulia where it is common in vase-painting but survives also in terracottas (cf. M.V. Stoop, Floral Figurines from South Italy (Assen 1960]). Note also the article by E. Walter-Karydi, “Die Entstehung der Grotteskenornamentik in der Antike”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 97, 1990, 137-152 and the book by G. Sauron, L'histoire vegetalisée. Ornement et politique à Rome (Paris 2000).

Ulla Lindser (Munich), Sale Cat., 1970, no. 49 (ill.); Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 98 (October 1974) no. 5 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 87.