A Campana Relief with Erotes and Garlands
Roman, late 1st century B.C. - 1st half of 1st century A.D.
Terracotta with large inclusions
Height: 20.8 cm
Length: 48.5 cm
Depth: 6.1 cm
Price on Request
Net for Export
Fragment of a relief frieze depicting three Erotes bearing opulent garlands of fruit on a plastically offset ground line. An egg-and-dart moulding at the top of the picture field. Reverse smooth; two oval holes for attachment, profiled rim below. Mould-made. Some surface losses. Campana reliefs are special type of terracotta relief that was used to decorate buildings. They are named after the collection of Marchese Giampietro Campana (1808-1880). These painted terracotta panels decorated temples as well as public (theatres, thermal baths) and private buildings (especially columbaria). The largest and most important workshops were located in Rome and the surrounding area.
PROVENANCE
Formerly Collection of the Swiss industrialist, philosopher and avid collector of antiquities Dr. Arnold Ruesch (1882-1929), Zurich. The object was displayed on a wall in the vestibule of his villa located on the Zürichberg and built in 1920-21. (photograph published in: Das Haus Arnold Ruesch: Architekten Müller & Freytag, in: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst, vol. 17 (1930), issue 12, p. 380). With Galerie Fischer, Luzern, Sammlung A. Ruesch, Zürich, Griechische, Etruskische und Römische Altertümer, 1-2.9.1936, lot 89. With the Swiss trade; consigned to an english art market, 2018.
NOTE
The egg-and-dart moulding on a relief with Dionysos and a maenad in the Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. no. 14157, is stylistically related. Cf. A. Borbein, Campanareliefs. Typologische und stilkritische Untersuchungen (Heidelberg 1968) 35, pl. 4.3. Borbein's study also provides a useful introduction to Campana reliefs. For the type, cf. a fragment in the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, inv. no. T.590.

