Moulding
Category
Architecture / Features & Decoration
Date
550 BC - 330 BC
Materials
Slate
Measurements
80 x 60 x 20 mm
Order this imageCollection
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent
NT 803183
Summary
Fragment of architectural sculpture in limestone from a column at Persepolis.
Full description
Small fragment of architectural sculpture in dark limestone. Forming two, adjacent, convex mouldings that would have originally formed part of a vertical section of decoration on an Achaemenid column capital. Some lighter, crusty accretion on the surface. Likely picked up by Vita Sackville-West in March 1927 from the surface debris of the Hundred-Columned Hall at Persepolis. Sackville-West made reference to the condition of this structure in her 1928 publication Twelve Days in Persia : "a wilderness of tumbled ruins... fallen capitals; fragments of carving small enough to go into a pocket..." Nigel Nicolson later described this fragment forming part of Vita's customary desk furniture in her writing room in the Tower at Sissinghurst, along with other personal mementoes. Marked on broken underside with old inventory number SIS. ST.1 and affixed label.
Provenance
Made during the Achaemenid or Ancient Iranian empire (550–330 BCE) picked up by Vita Sackville West 1927.