The foot comes from a small statue with flesh parts of ivory and with drapery in another material, perhaps metal or semiprecious stone. The tongue of the sandal is decorated with a personification of the Nile, suggesting that the statue depicted was either an Egyptian deity or the Emperor Augustus, who annexed Egypt after the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Ivory sandaled foot
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:ca. 31 BCE–14 CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Ivory
Dimensions:Overall: 2 3/8 x 5 5/8 in. (6 x 14.3 cm)
Classifications:Miscellaneous-Bone, Ivory
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1925
Accession Number:25.78.43
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. "Miscellaneous Accessions in the Classical Department." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21(12), part 1: pp. 284, 286, fig. 6.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1938. "The Exhibition of Augustan Art." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 33(12): p. 275.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Christine Alexander. 1939. Augustan Art: An Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus. p. 26, fig. 62, New York: Marchbanks Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 82, p. 112, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sebesta, Judith Lynn and Larissa Bonfante. 2001. The World of Roman Costume pp. 102, 114–5, figs. 6.1.r, 6.18, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Lapatin, Kenneth. 2001. Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World. pp. 130ff, New York: Oxford University Press.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 420, pp. 362, 487, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lapatin, Kenneth. 2015. Luxus: The Sumptuous Arts of Greece and Rome. no. 165, pp. 6, 178, 210, 267, pl. 165, Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Lapatin, Kenneth. 2015. "Luxury Arts." A Companion to Roman Art, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World, Barbara E. Borg, ed. p. 335, fig. 17.7, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. p. 199, fig. 94, New York: Scala Publishers.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
