Apollo is depicted here as a hunter, wearing a laurel wreath on his head. Though most of the individual stones (tesserae) are stone, a few are made of glass, including some in his sandals, cloak, and crown, and in the ground. This fragment was once part of a floor mosaic excavated in Antioch, a prosperous ancient city in today’s Syria. Other examples from these excavations are found embedded throughout the museum and research library (see also Mosaic with Erotes Fishing).
Provenance
- Excavated in Daphne-Harbiye, Antioch, Syria, House of the Red Pavement, Room 6, 1939 season. By partage to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (former acc. no. 1939.310). Gifted by the Fogg to Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, 1967.
Selected Bibliography
- R. Stillwell, ed., The Excavations, 1937–1939, vol. 3 of Antioch-on-the-Orontes (Princeton, 1941), 197, no. 144, plate 70, panel B.
- G. Bühl, ed., Dumbarton Oaks: The Collections (Washington, DC, 2008), 30, plate on 31.
More Exhibit Items
Roman copy of Greek original of 2nd century BCE–3rd century CE; marble; 19.7 cm (7 3/4 in.). BZ.1939.1
Romano-Arabian, 2nd century; bronze; 102 × 28 × 106 cm (40 3/16 × 11 × 41 3/4 in.). BZ.1938.12
Rome, date uncertain; bronze; 144 × 25.8 × 14.8 cm (56 11/16 ×10 3/16 × 5 13/16 in.). BZ.1940.22
Late Roman, 3rd–4th century; porphyry; 40 × 45 cm (15 3/4 × 17 11/16 in.). BZ.1941.5
Ptolemaic Egyptian, late 2nd–early 1st century BCE; limestone; 31.5 × 17.5 × 19.5 cm (12 3/8 × 6 7/8 in. × 7 11/16 in.). BZ.1937.13
Roman, 1st century, copy of Greek original of 3rd century BCE; marble; 34 × 17.5 × 23 cm (13 3/8 × 6 7/8 × 9 1/16 in.). BZ.1946.2
Persian, 486–465 BCE; limestone; 50 × 30 × 10.2 cm (19 11/16 × 11 13/16 × 4 in.). BZ.1932.4
Persian, 486–465 BCE; limestone; 37.5 × 67.5 × 9 cm (14 3/4 × 26 9/16 × 3 9/16 in.). BZ.1931.1
Late Roman, 3rd-4th century; mosaic; 144.8 × 94 cm (57 × 37 in.). BZ.1967.44.2a
Late Roman, late 2nd or 3rd century; mosaic; 167.5 × 264.5 cm (65 15/16 × 104 1/8 in.). BZ.1940.64.