This sculpture depicts two tribute bearers. Comparison with other sections indicates that the staircase gave access to the palace of Xerxes at Persepolis, the capital of the ancient Persian Achaemenid Empire.
Provenance
- From the Palace of Xerxes at Persepolis, Iran; M. and R. Stora Gallery, Paris; purchased from Stora Gallery by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, DC, March 1931; transferred to Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC, November 1940.
Selected Bibliography
- G. M. A. Richter, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Cambridge, MA, 1956), 2–3, no. 2, plate 1B.
- A. Kirin, ed., Sacred Art, Secular Context: Objects of Art from the Byzantine Collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (Athens, GA, 2005), 46–47, fig. 9.
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