| Popis: |
A group of four marble fountain spouts in a storeroom in the Vatican Museums appeared to be made of dolomitic marble from Thasos. Analysis of the marble with paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy confirmed this identification. In spite of differences, all four pieces seem to be produced by the same workshop, which can be called the Vatican Fountain Workshop. Examples of this type of fountain spout, which have water stairs on four sides and were intended to be placed in the center of a pool, are found scattered throughout the western Roman Empire. One example in Pula, Croatia is clearly a product of the Vatican workshop and appears to be made of Thasian marble. Most surviving monolithic fountain spouts appear to date from the second century, but the type clearly underwent a rapid development from simple to richly decorated forms during the course of the last third of the first century CE. The Vatican workshop evidently specialized in relatively simple cubic forms. Although the workshop favored Thasian marble and included at least one sculptor from Thasos, it was based in Rome. It also may have produced statues of the sleeping Ariadne in dolomitic Thasian marble for fountains. |
