ClassificationsGreek and Roman Art

Griffin Protome

AAT Object Form/FunctionProtomai

Place CreatedGreece, Europe

CultureGreek

PeriodOrientalizing

Datemid 7th Century BCE

MediumBronze

Credit LineCarlos Collection of Ancient Art

Dimensions5 1/4 x 2 1/8 in. (13.4 x 5.4 cm)

Object number1986.010 A

Label TextThe griffin, a mythical monster with the body of a lion but the head and wings of an eagle, the ears of a horse, and a snake's tail, was conceived in the fertile imagination of the ancient Near East, where two species were familiar, the biped (genie) and the quadruped. In the seventh century BC, Greek artists assimilated so great a range of motifs from such prototypes that scholars speak of an "orientalizing period".

Cast in bronze, these two protomes were once attached by three rivets to the shoulder of a cauldron. Its body was made from bronze hammered so thin that only scraps survive. The artist has confined his interest to the head and neck of the monster. A wide open mouth, its outline hatched, reveals a protruding tongue. The eyes, their outlines also hatched, may well have been inlaid. On top a stylized tress of hair takes the form of a knob. Below, the protome continues as a sinuous neck, textured with scales.

Bronze cauldrons, mixing vessels with rounded bases that were set atop rod-tripods, were important prestige objects. Some were made in workshops in Syria and the Levant and found their way to Greece, where several were dedicated in sanctuaries. Before long, Greek craftsmen began to create their own versions, which in turn were widely circulated, some reaching places as distant as central France. Herodotus tells of merchants from Samos whose ship, bound for Egypt, was instead carried by the wind to Tartessos, in Spain. By unexpected good luck, they made a fortune on newly discovered silver, and with a tithe of the profits, they dedicated a cauldron "with griffins under the rim" in the sanctuary of Hera on Samos.
Exhibition HistoryAn Enduring Ideal: Classical Art from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, November 1, 1992 - February 15, 1993
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - January 1997
The Fire of Hephaistos, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, February 20 - April 25, 1997
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 1997 - 1999
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, 2000 - May 2004
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - January 2011
Monsters, Demons & Winged Beasts: Composite Creatures in the Ancient World, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - June 19, 2011
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, June 20, 2011 - June 5, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, July 2014 - Present
Published ReferencesMichael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 52.
Jasper Gaunt, "New Galleries of Greek & Roman Art at Emory University: The Michael C. Carlos Museum," Minerva 16 (2005): 13-17.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 45.

ProvenanceEx private collection, Germany, before 1950. Purchased by Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology from Ingrid (1939-2018) and Bruce McAlpine [McAlpine Ancient Art Ltd.], London, England.

Status

On view

Collections