Important Roman Bronze Urn with Memento Mori Inscription in Poetic Metre

Culture: Roman

Period: Late 1st to early 2nd century A.D.

Material: Bronze

Dimensions: 46 cm high

Price: 24 000 Euro

Ref: 3693

Provenance: South German private collection Jakob Polschak, acquired in the 1960s. Then for three generations in the family. Brought to auction by granddaughter Daniela Papadopoulos at Hermann Historica Munich on May 16, 2022, lot 59. Most recently in the Austrian collection D. D.

Condition: Minor breaks in the lower third of the urn professionally restored and stabilized from the inside. Otherwise only traces of corrosion on the inside. With a beautiful patina.

Description: Magnificently large bronze vessel that was originally made for storing or cooling wine, but was soon after used as an ash urn. The biconical vessel stands on a ring-shaped foot ring with a pulled out rim, which was worked out separately and soldered to its funnel-shaped top. At the transition from bulge to shoulder there are two horizontally arranged handles with attachments in the form of openwork palmettes. The handles are elegantly curved upwards and have a profiled grip. Just below the handles are two parallel encircling grooves. The belonging lid, which has a screw cap in the centre with which an adjacent hole could be opened and closed, is also made separately. It is possible that the act of feeding the deceased in Roman tradition was to be carried out through this lockable opening. The urn is particularly significant due to its two-line inscription written in metre (“elegiac distich”) on the shoulder. It reads: “QVANTVM EST IN VITA FAMAE VIRTVTIS HONORIS / ENAT QVAM PARVOS MORS REDIGIT CINERES.” It is a memento mori, which loosely translated reads: “No matter how much fame, virtue and honour there may be in life, death turns it into little piles of ash again.” The letters are well proportioned and precisely sized and carved onto the outside of the urn. Both the poet and the calligrapher demonstrated masterful skills of their craft when executing it. A document of Roman material- and intellectual culture of great rarity.