The section of a fluted Ionic column in the center of this room stood over fifty-eight feet high in its original location at the Temple of Artemis. The delicate foliate carving on the capital is unique among extant capitals from the temple, and the torus (foliated base), with its vegetal scale-like pattern, is also exceptionally elaborate. This capital is slightly smaller than others found at the site, indicating that it does not belong to the outer colonnade. Two similar pairs of columns (marked in red on the plan shown nearby) stood in the east and west porches. The column, displayed here with most of the shaft omitted, was probably originally from one or more of those pairs. Alternatively, it may be from the cella (inner room) or from the inner back porch. Parts of the fluted shaft are restored, and the profiled base below the torus is a copy of the original.
#1085. Marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis
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Title:Marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis
Period:Hellenistic
Date:ca. 300 BCE
Culture:Greek
Medium:Marble
Dimensions:H. 142 1/8 in. (361 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Gift of The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis, 1926
Object Number:26.59.1
From the excavations of the Temple of Artemis at Sardis (Butler 1925, p. 65)
1911-1912, excavated in Sardis by The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis; acquired in 1926, gift of The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis.
Butler, Howard Crosby. 1922. The Excavations, 1910-1914, Sardis, Vol. 1, Pt. 1. pp. 52–3, pl. 46, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Butler, Howard Crosby. 1925. Architecture: The Temple of Artemis, Sardis, Vol. 2, pt. 1. p. 65, figs. 73–76, pls. B, C, Atlas pls. VIII-XI, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. "The Classical Collection: Rearrangement and Important Accessions." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21(4), part 2: pp. 7, 10–11, fig. 1.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 321, 323, fig. 224, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 321, 323, fig. 224, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1933. "The Department of Classical Art: Extension and Rearrangement." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28(2): p. 32.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1934. Guide to the Collections: Ancient and Oriental Art--Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman Far Eastern, Near Eastern Oriental Armor. p. 44, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1939. Guide to the Collections: Ancient and Oriental Art--Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman Far Eastern, Near Eastern Oriental Armor, Vol. 1, World's Fair Edition. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. p. 109, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 91–92, fig. 36.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 55, pp. 74–75, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 208, pp. 181, 446, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. p. 74, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lazzarini, Lorenzo and Clemente Marconi. 2014. "A New Analysis of Major Greek Sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum: Petrological and Stylistic." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 49: p. 123–24, 130, 138–39, fig. 18, Appendix.
Hemingway, Seán. 2019. "Introduction." Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms from Pergamon to Rome, Seán Hemingway and Kyriaki Karoglou, eds. pp. 16–17, fig. 5, New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Yegül, Fikret K. 2020. The Temple of Artemis at Sardis, Archaeolgical Exploration of Sardis 7. pp. 121–22, 126, figs. 2.247, 2.256, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. p. 141, New York: Phaidon Press.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. no. 28, pp. 36, 122–23, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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