Table Rim Fragments (4th century): Artwork and History

Table Rim Fragments (4th century) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman or Byzantine.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Depictions of hunting and wild animals were ubiquitous in the homes of the wealthy during the late Roman and early Byzantine periods. The theme adorned silver plates, textiles, floors, and furnishings such as these marble fragments, which once formed the rim of a table. Here, the artist has represented a range of animals in combat, including a stag, ram, boar, and dog. The meaning of this imagery changed according to context: in the home it would remind viewers of different forms of entertainment, such as hunting or public games. In a church, on the other hand, it might symbolize the sinful world with its cycles of violence and death.

Object facts

• Title: Table Rim Fragments
• Date: 4th century
• Artist attribution: Roman or Byzantine
• Place of origin: Istanbul
• Medium: Marble
• Dimensions: a: 6.4 × 28.5 × 12.2 cm (2 1/4 × 11 1/4 × 5 5/8 in.); b: 5.7 × 34.6 × 15.8 cm (2 1/4 × 1 5/8 × 6 1/4 in.); c: 5.3 × 31.1 × 19.6 cm (2 1/8 × 12 1/4 × 7 3/4 in.)
• Type: Decorative Arts
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4427a-c

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.