Romanesque Marble Capital, Southern France 12th Century

A Romanesque Capital
Southern France, 12th century
Marble
28 cm. / 11 ins high, max width 35 cm. / 13 ¾ ins

PROVENANCE: Private collection, UK

The neck decorated on each side with four spiralling columns issuing reeded branches, between curl-tipped spreading acanthus leaves at the corners; the echinus with beaded mouldings below egg-and-dart frieze with volutes at the corners, above a square abacus carved on each side with a fragmentary boss.

This elaborately decorated marble capital is clearly inspired by earlier Byzantine and classical models, although the shallow carving and vertical emphasis of the dimensions would suggest a Romanesque dating around the twelfth century.

For the Byzantine influence on the present capital’s design, see the ‘Medallion’ Corinthian capital with soft-pointed leaves and rounded boss under the abacus in Santa Maria Maggiore, Ravenna (cf. Niewöhner, op. cit.). For Romanesque capitals with similar designs of acanthus leaves at the corners divided by spiralling columns, see the capital in the twelfth-century cloister of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Roussillon, Southern France (cf. Durliat, op. cit., p. 29) and another twelfth-century capital from French Catalonia in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc. no. 25.120.627). [1] These parallels would suggest a southern French origin for the present capital in the twelfth century.

RELATED LITERATURE:
Marcel Durliat, 'La Sculpture Romane en Roussillon', Vol. 1, Perignan, 1950, p. 29; Philipp Niewöhner, 'Byzantine Ornaments in Stone', Berlin, 2021, p. 25, fig. 41


[1] For an image of this capital, see Metropolitan Museum website, last accessed 27th March 2024: