< PreviousCQ11Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019Early EuropeNew Artworks Monthlyon www.cahn.chA RAW FORM OF AN AXE BLADE. L. 18.8 cm. Silex. Core tool, roughly hewn on all sides. Cortex remains. Fairly symmetrical, elongated oval shape. Irregular to lanceolate cross-section. Straight longitudinal profile. Intact. Formerly priv. coll. Hervé Bouraly, Saint Ouen, between 1965-1974. Inscription on object: “Ecox. 1., .17. Ecoyeux.I" and “Ecx 1". Charente-Maritime (Western France), Neolithic, 5500-2200 B.C. CHF 4,600AN AXE BLADE. L. 8 cm. Stone (fibrolith). Triangular shape, rounded cutting edge and pointed neck. Polished surface. Formerly priv. coll. Hervé Bouraly, Saint Ouen, France, built 1965-1990. Inscription on object: “Hache en fibrolithe St. Jean sur Couësnon (Ille & Vilaine)". Brittany, France, Neolithic, ca. 5500-2200 B.C. CHF 2,200AN AXE BLADE. L. 7.5 cm. Stone. An axe blade with triangular contour, rounded cutting edge and pointed neck. Rectangular cross-section. Polished surface. Beige stone, brown marbling. Intact. Formerly priv. coll. Hervé Bouraly, Saint Ouen, France, built 1965-1990. France, Neolithic, ca. 5500-2200 B.C. CHF 1,600A DAGGER BLADE. L. 21.5 cm. Silex. Symmetrical shape. Flat cross-section. Straight longitudinal profile. Both surfaces of the blade entirely retouched. Base of tang with preserved impact surface. Sharp edges with additional retouching at the rim. Tip very slightly worn, otherwise intact. Formerly Austrian priv. coll., acquired in the 1990s on the art market. Europe, Late Neolithic, ca. 3000-2200 B.C. CHF 8,600AN AXE BLADE. L. 32.5 cm. Stone (flint). Tool worked on all surfaces and edges. Slightly trapezoid shape. Rect-angular cross-section. Rounded cutting edge. Unpol-ished so-called “flat”or “rectangular axe,” widespread in the 4th mill. B.C. in South Scandinavia and North Ger-many. Formerly Danish priv. coll. T. H. Denmark, Early to Middle Neolithic, ca. 3800-3100 B.C. CHF 11,000CQ12Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019A SMALL STIRRUP JAR. H. 5.4 cm. Clay. Biconical vessel on low foot. A cylindrical pseudo-filling hole in the centre, from which two broad handles run to the shoulder. On one side a tubular spout. Rich geometric decoration in dark red and black paint. Lines and dots on the shoulder, encircling bands of varying breadth around the body. The simple geometric decoration indi-cates that the vessel was created during the Late Phase of the Mycenaean Culture. Paint slightly abraded, other-wise intact. From the estate of the Swiss art dealer and collector Elsa Bloch-Diener (1922-2012), Bern, Swit-zerland, acquired between 1968 and 1983. Mycenaean, Late Helladic IIIC, 12th cent. B.C. CHF 3,800A PSI IDOL. H. 12.4 cm. Terracotta. Hand-modelled, stylised female figure. Cylindrical lower body with flar-ing hem as base, upper body with flat breasts and raised arms that form a crescent. Narrow, elongated head with pronounced, pinched nose and flaring headdress (po-los). Brown glaze for the eyes, mouth, hair and details of the garment. The raised arms of this psi idol form an epiphanic gesture used for images of deities from at least the early 2nd mill. B.C. onwards. Minor chip-ping at polos. Glaze slightly abraded in places. With Christie's London, 6.6.1989, lot 464. Formerly priv. coll. William Froelich, New York, 1990. With Antiquarium, Ltd., New York, 2013. Published Antiquarium, Ltd., An-cient Treasures XI, 2013, 16. Greek, Mycenaean, Late Helladic IIIB, 13th cent. B.C. CHF 12,000AN IDOL. H. 21 cm. Marble. This remarkable idol has highly unusual proportions. The upper arms and chest are very short in contrast to the elongated abdomen. The long, slender lower arms taper towards the wrists and are crossed over the chest. Two hardly perceptible protrusions immediately below the arms might represent the breasts and thus denote the idol as female. The sturdy legs are separated by a groove that continues through the buttocks and up the back, in a slight curve, to the neck. The knees are sculpted in relief. Head and feet missing. Reassembled in the middle. Repair to the left shoulder. Slightly worn. Formerly French priv. coll., acquired ca. 1970. Early Cycladic, ca. 2800-2500 B.C. CHF 58,000CQ13Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019A STATUETTE OF A BULL. L. max. 10 cm. Terracotta. Hand-modelled, stylised bull with curving horns, long muzzle, powerful neck, elongated, rounded body, splayed, tapering legs and broad tail. Decorated with wavy lines on the rump and short lines on the rest of the body in reddish-brown glaze. Such clay statuettes of animals were found in sanctuaries as well as in graves (often of children). The influence of their distinctive, stylised shapes can still be recognised in the choroplastic art of the Geometric Period (ca. 900-700 B.C.). Formerly priv. coll. William Froelich, New York, 1990. Published: R. Wace Ancient Art, London, Cat. 2009, no. 32, illus. Greek, Mycenaean, Late Helladic III, 14th-13th cent. B.C. CHF 12,000A DOUBLE SPIRAL ORNAMENT. B. 15.1 cm. Bronze. Double spiral made from a thin bronze rod with a rhomboid cross-section. The outermost coil is decorated with incisions. Joined together in the centre by a round wire spiral. Originally a dress ornament. It could, for instance, have been attached to a textile by means of a needle inserted through the wire spiral. Green patina. Intact. Formerly Swiss priv. coll. Dr. R. H. (1922-2007). Danubian region, 1st half of Late Bronze Age, ca. 14th-12th cent. B.C. CHF 6,800A STATUETTE OF A BULL. L. 11.3 cm. Clay. The stylised bull stands on slightly splayed legs. Powerful horns rise up from its head and the dewlap is indicated. Proba-bly a votive gift. Intact. From the estate of the Swiss art dealer and collector Elsa Bloch-Diener (1922-2012), Bern, acquired between 1968 and 1983. Cypriot, late 2nd mill. B.C. CHF 2,800A KNIFE WITH A PERFORATED HILT. L. 19.5 cm. Bronze. Knife with distinctive, curved blade and perfo-rated hilt which was originally hafted. Surface slightly corroded in places, end of hilt broken off, otherwise undamaged. Formerly Austrian priv. coll., acquired in the 1990s on the art market. Europe, Late Bronze Age, ca. 1300-800 B.C. CHF 2,400THREE NEEDLES L. 17.5 cm, 53.5 cm, 70 cm. Bronze. Three needles with slightly tapering spherical heads – two are decorated – and thickened neck with grooves. Shaft with circular cross-section. Due to its length, the smaller needle was probably used as a hair needle. The longer ones were garment needles. These are a typical component of Bronze Age woman’s attire and were usu-ally worn in pairs. Strong green patina. Surface flaked off in places; minimal, hardly visible traces of sinter, otherwise undamaged. Formerly priv. coll. Austria, acquired in the 1990s on the art market. Europe, Late Bronze Age phase Bz D, ca. 1300-1200 B.C. CHF 6,600CQ14Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019Recipe from Antiquitytive than conventional forms of sacrifice and prayer. (R.G. Edmonds, Redefining Ancient Orphism, 2013, 77-79). In their quest for pu-rity, the Orphics avoided killing beings that were endowed with a soul, and this evidently affected both their choice of diet and the na-ture of their sacrifices. Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C.) described this aspect of the Orphic way of life (orphikos bios) in his Laws: “Indeed, we may see that the practice of men sacrificing one an-other survives even now among many peoples; and we hear of the opposite practice among others, when they dared not even taste an ox, and the offerings to the gods were not living creatures, but rather cakes of meal and grain steeped in honey, and other such pure sacri- fices, and they abstained from meat as though it were unholy to eat it or to stain the altars of the gods with blood. Rather, those of us men who then existed lived what is called an Orphic life, keeping wholly to inanimate (apsychon) food and, contrariwise, abstaining wholly from things animate (empsychon).” (782c-d). Orphic teachings and cult practices appear to have exercised a considerable influence on Pythagoras and his followers. Points of contact are particularly evident in their di-etary regulations, for like the orphikos bios the Pythagorean way of life demanded absti-nence from animate food and sacrifices. Fur-thermore, both sects also prohibited the con-sumption of eggs and beans. “Verses such as these are quoted from Orpheus,” a source as late as the Byzantine Geoponika points out: “Fools! Withhold your hands from beans! and: To eat beans is as much as to eat your parent’s heads.” (2.35). Whilst there is a logi-cal connection between abstinence from eggs and vegetarianism – according to Plutarch the egg, in “Orpheus’s and Pythagoras’s opin-ions” was imagined “to be the principle of generation” (Quaestiones convivales 2.3.1) – the prohibition of eating beans fuelled wild speculation amongst authors both ancient and modern. According to Porphyry (ca. 233-305 A.D.), for instance, “in the beginning, the creation of the universe and the making of living things was in a state of disorder, and many seeds were sown in the ground. They rotted together, and little by little birth re-sulted.” As “men were born from the same stock whence beans flourished,” it was, Por-phyry suggests, thought equally necessary to abstain from the eating of beans as of human flesh. (Vita Pythagorae 44).Vegetarianism in Ancient Greece “Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man who did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived.” (Plutarch, Moralia 12.993a-b). Open-ing his discourse De esu carnium with these emphatic words, Plutarch (ca. 45-125 A.D.) could clearly take it for granted that his read-ers knew that Pythagoras (ca. 570-496 B.C.), whom we more readily associate with the geo- metrical theorem bearing his name, was one of the founders of the vegetarian way of life in ancient Greece. In the half-millennium that separated Pythagoras from Plutarch, and also in the ensuing centuries until Late Antiquity, vegetarianism remained a controversial topic that left its mark in numerous textual sources.The usual fare of the ancient Greeks consisted of the sitos, i.e. staple foods made from cere-als or legumes, and the opson, literally “what one eats with bread”. These relishes included vegetables, cheese, eggs, fish and occasion-ally also meat. With regard to vegetarianism it was significant that the meat of domestic animals could only be eaten if the animal had been sacrificed with the appropriate religious ritual. Generally a mageiros who united the roles of priest, butcher and cook was hired for this task. (A. Dalby, Siren Feasts, 1996, 8-9, 22-23). Through the practice of animal sac-rifice the eating of meat was elevated to the status of a sacred meal. This sacramental as-pect was further underscored by the belief that by partaking of an animal which had been dedicated to a god, the devotee entered into a union with the deity. (J. Haussleiter, Der Vege-tarismus in der Antike, 1935, 13, 17). Thus, to refrain from eating meat was far more than a purely dietary decision. Rather, it amounted to the rejection of a religious practice that was of fundamental importance to Greek society. (J.N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World, 2014, 70, 79).In ancient Greece the first people to practice vegetarianism appear to have been the Orphics, the devotees of a religious movement named after the mythical Thracian singer Orpheus which can be traced back to the 6th century B.C. Orpheus was thought to have invented ritual purifications from unholy deeds (ka-tharmoi) and was regarded as the supreme founder of teletai, rituals which might perfect relations with the gods and were more effec-A PYTHAGOREAN DINNER: “After the walk they took a bath, then went to their mess: not more than ten people ate together. When the fellow-diners met, there were libations and offerings of incense and frankincense. Then they began dinner, so as to finish before sunset. They had wine, barley cakes and wheat bread, relishes and cooked and raw veg-etables.” (Iamblichos, De vita Pythagorica 98). THREE PLATES AND BOWLS. Clay. Dm. max 32 cm. Roman 3rd-5th cent. B.C. Together with two other Roman plates: CHF 3,200. A BLACK-GLAZED PLATE. Clay. Dm. 12.5 cm. Attic, 400-375 B.C. CHF 600. A BLACK-GLAZED BOWL. Clay. Dm. 10.2 cm. Western Greek, 4th cent. B.C. CHF 600.By Yvonne YiuCQ15Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019The Orphics and Pythagoreans also shared the belief in the transmigration of souls (me-tempsychosis). This doctrine was, however, only rarely adduced by early ancient authors to account for a vegetarian choice of diet. Dio- dorus (1st century B.C.), for instance, states dispassionately: “Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls and considered the eating of flesh as an abominable thing, saying that the souls of all living creatures pass after death into other living creatures.” (Bibliotheca historica 10.6.1). In contrast, later authors took the dramatic potential of this notion to extremes. Plutarch, in his strident condemna-tion of meat-eating, declares: “You ridicule a man who abstains from eating mutton. But are we to refrain from laughter when we see you slicing off portions from a dead father or mother and sending them to absent friends and inviting those who are at hand, heaping their plates with flesh?” (EC 12.997e-f). The opponents of the vegetarian way of life were not at loss for an answer, however. Porphyry’s meat-lovers, for example, argue: “If indeed souls are inserted in bodies, they will be much gratified by being destroyed. For thus their return to the human form will be more rapid. The bodies which are eaten will not produce any pain in the souls. Hence, they will rejoice when they can leave the animal bodies.” (De abstinentia ab esu animalium 1.19).For Pythagoras and his followers, other rea-sons seem to have counted for more in their choice of a vegetarian diet. The Pythagore-ans strove to attain a clear and tranquil mind that best enabled them to pursue their studies by observing a regular daily routine in which physical well-being was promoted by walks, sports and baths. Much attention was paid to nutrition, for as Iamblichos (ca. 240-320 A.D.) observed, “a well-ordered diet makes a great contribution to the best education.” For this reason, “Pythagoras banned all foods which are windy and cause disturbance, and recom-mended the use of those which settle and sus-tain the state of the body. […] For those phi-losophers who had reached the most sublime heights of knowledge, he ruled out once and for all those foods which are unnecessary and unjust, telling them never to eat any living creature, drink wine, sacrifice living things to the gods or hurt them in any way: they were to be treated with scrupulous justice.” (De vita Pythagorica 106-7).This last idea shows clearly that Pythagorean vegetarianism went beyond a purely utilitari-an care for the self and was interwoven with the overarching themes of justice and right living. Cicero (106-43 B.C.) pointed out that according to Pythagoras “all kinds of living creatures have a right to the same justice. […] It is, therefore, a crime to injure an animal, and the perpetrator of such crime must bear his punishment.” (De republica 3.19). Sex-tus Empiricus (ca. 106-201 A.D.) added that the Pythagoreans “say that there is a certain community (koinonia) uniting us not only with each other and with the gods, but even with the irrational animals. For, there is one spirit pervading the whole kosmos, like soul, and which makes us one with them.” (Adver-sus mathematicos 9.127). Also related to the theme of justice was the conviction that who-soever acted fairly towards animals would, as a matter of course, be even kinder to his fellow human beings. “Do you not find here a won-derful means of training in social responsibil-ity? Who could wrong a human being when he found himself so gently and humanely disposed toward other non-human creatures?” Plutarch asks his readers (EC 995f-6a), and Iamblichos relates that Pythagoras “instruct-ed the legislators among the civil servants to abstain from living creatures, because, if they wished to act with perfect justice, they must do no wrong to fellow-creatures.” (VP 108).These views by no means met with unani-mous approval. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), for example, taught that there was an essential and not just a gradual difference between the souls of humans and animals. Whereas plants have life and animals have life and percep-tion, only human have both characteristics along with rationality (logos). For this reason, Aristotle regarded humans as the most perfect living beings and concluded that “plants exist for the sake of animals and animals for the good of man, the domestic species both for his service and for his food, and most of the wild ones for the sake of his food and in order that they may furnish him both with clothing and with other appliances. If therefore nature makes nothing without purpose, it follows that nature has made all the animals for the sake of men.” (Politeia 1.3.7).Whilst Aristotle’s views were certainly more in line with general attitudes towards ani-mals, and not many were willing or able to conform to the dietary ascetism of the Orphics and the inner circle of the Pythagoreans, the wish to lead an at least partially vegetarian lifestyle evidently existed. Iamblichos not-ed that Pythagoras allowed “other students, whose life was not entirely pure and holy and philosophic […] to eat some animal food, though even they had fixed periods of ab-stinence.” (VP 109). Furthermore, Plato, who did not categorically proscribe the eating of meat in his texts, seems to have placed great importance on moderation in eating and drinking, and various anecdotes suggest that the philosopher and his students may have observed an almost vegetarian diet. The poet Theopompus of the 5th century B.C. mocked Plato's students in his comedy Hedychares: “And stand ye there in order, my fasting band of mullets, entertained, like geese, only on boiled greens.” (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae Plato’s Favourite Food“Observing Plato one day at a costly ban-quet taking olives, ‘How is it,’ he [Diogenes the Cynic] said, ‘that you the philosopher who sailed to Sicily for the sake of these dishes, now when they are before you do not enjoy them?’ ‘Nay, by the gods, Dio-genes,’ replied Plato, ‘there also for the most part I lived upon olives and such like.’ ‘Why then,’ said Diogenes, ‘did you need to go to Syracuse? Was it that Attica at that time did not grow olives?’ Again, another time he was eating dried figs when he en-countered Plato and offered him a share of them. When Plato took them and ate them, he said, ‘I said you might share them, not that you might eat them all up.’” (Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum 6.25). 7.308a) and various authors poked fun at Plato for his alleged love of dried figs and olives. In their cheerful irreverence, these an-ecdotes give us an exaggerated impression of how some may have reacted to the deviation from the dietary norm that vegetarianism in ancient Greece clearly was.Pythagorean Barley Cakes (after Pliny, Naturalis historia 18.14)Moisten 400 g barley with water, leave it to dry for a night and roast the next day. Mill together with 60 g linseed, 10 g coriander seed and some salt. Knead with ca. 250 ml water, form flat cakes and bake over hot ashes. Dried figs and olives. TWO PLATES. Clay. Wes-tern Greek, ca. 330 B.C. Dm 13.4 cm, CHF 1,800. Dm. 14.2 cm, CHF 2,000.Roasted barley, linseed and coriander seed. THREE BASE RING WARE CUPS. Dm. max 16.7 cm. Clay. Eastern Mediterranean, Late Bronze Age, 1475-1225 B.C. Each cup CHF 1,600.CQ16Cahn’s Quarterly 2/2019HighlightMajestic, “classical” – these are the words that first spring to mind when contemplating this slightly over life-size marble head. But then come the questions – how else could it be in the field of archaeology? The bust complete with plinth are a nineteenth-century addition whereas the head down to the visible break in the neck is ancient (the previous restoration work having not yet been reversed). However, the figure’s identity is urged upon us by the bust, since what strikes us here – aside from the articulation of the breastplate – is the cen-trally positioned, winged head of the Medusa, encircled by writhing snakes. This is an allu-sion to the aegis worn not only by Zeus, but also by Athena, as we know from several Clas-sical Greek statues of the goddess. So the ad-dition of the bust to this head also supplied an aid to interpretation. Yet the head itself seems austere, almost masculine. So how did this addition and the identification ensuing from it come about? There is one cru-cial clue to be named here and that one clue is actually quite a sensation. The reference is to a replica of the head which, as far as we can tell (not having studied it in detail), is not only very accurate but also on the same scale: namely the head of the famous Albani Athena. But here we run into an analogous dilemma, this time raised not by a bust but by the statue to which that head was appended. The first to claim that the Albani Athena, head and all, came from the Villa Hadriana was apparently Comte Frédéric de Clarac (1777–1847), then chief antiquarian at the Louvre, who made the said assertion in the third volume of his Musée de sculpture an-tique et moderne (published posthumously in 1850). That both pieces were found in Tivoli – albeit separately – has remained axiomatic to this day. Certainly the head of the Albani Ath-ena was made for insertion into a statue, but that is where the problems begin; for in the ab-sence of any visible breaks as evidence, we can only look to see how well the size and shape of the two pieces match. In his contribution to the Villa Albani catalogue of 1989, the perspi-cacious Andreas Linfert (1942–1996) remarked that while there were indeed “grounds for doubting that head and statue are of a piece,” it was “nevertheless probable.” So the obvious question is: Was whoever re-stored the head now at the Cahn Gallery familiar HEAD (ALBANI TYPE). H. 31 cm. Marble. Roman, 3rd cent. A.D. after a Greek ori-ginal dating from ca. 450 B.C. First publication: F. Haverfield, “A Later Inscription from Nicopolis,” Journal of Philology 12 (1883) 296. Price on request with the Albani Athena? Were that the case, as seems plausible to me, we would also have an explanation for the bust with the Gorgoneion, since the Albani Athe-na also wears the aegis on her breast. And this Athena was well known right from the start as she was included in the collection of antiquities selected for Cardinal Alessandro Albani’s Ro-man villa by no less an antiquarian than Johann Joachim Winckelmann.The animal scalp that the Albani Athena wears on her head also attract-ed notice right from the start. It was this dog- or wolf-skin cap that per-suaded Adolf Furtwängler, in his book Meis-terwerke der grieschischen Plastik of 1893, to attribute the statue to the Classical sculptor Agorakritos, whose cultic statue of Athena in Koroneia in Boeotia – where it formed part of a Zeus-Hades group – he knew from liter-ary sources. The connection between such a head covering and a cult of the underworld is mentioned even by Homer, who refers to the cap as a “cap of Hades” (Iliad 5, 844f.). The archaeologist Ernst Langlotz (1895–1978) doubted the Albani head and statue combi-nation, but his scepticism went largely un-heard. And I must admit that when I first be-gan studying this head, I, too, had no doubts whatsoever concerning the consensus view of it. In the meantime, however, I have come to regard the critical remarks of Langlotz – who besides being a sensitive observer was also Herbert A. Cahn’s first academic tutor and later a loyal friend – as increasingly plausible. Langlotz sought to prove the point by proposing a combination of the same head type with a male torso representing the hero Perseus, several replicas of which have survived. And since the austere style of the head is not merely a question of sex, that re-ally is a “liberation.” It was the attribution to Athena or Perseus?Reopening an Archaeological PuzzleBy Martin FlasharThe “Langlotz Perseus,” reconstructed with the Albani head and a torso from the Capitol. Ernst Langlotz, Der triumphierende Perseus (1960), pls. 10 ff.Agorakritos, a pupil of Phidias, that led to the late dating of the piece to 430/420 B.C. Iden-tifying it with Perseus, however, also calls to mind Myron’s statue of Perseus on the Acrop-olis, which is dated ca. 450 B.C. (Pausanias 1,23,7). The future owner of this outstanding head thus has a chance to rekindle a schol-arly discussion that has been smouldering for nearly one and a half centuries! Next >