The Biel Throne in the British Museum, April 2013

The Biel Throne

Object type: throne; sculpture

Museum number: 2001,0508.1

Title (object): The Biel Throne

Description:

Roman marble throne, known as 'The Biel Throne', from the prohedria of the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, as built by Herodes Attikos between 140 and 143 AD, on the proper right side is a relief showing an olive tree and a table on which there rests a Panathenaic amphora, containing an olive spray and three wreaths, beneath the table rest two palm branches, the front legs are in the form of owls and the left side is undercorated (as the throne was designed to be set flush against another of which illustrations survive).

Culture/period: Roman

Date: 140-143

Production place: Made in: Athens; (Europe,Greece,Attica,Athens)

Findspot: Found/Acquired: Vescovaro; (Europe,Greece,Attica,Athens,Vescovaro);
Found/Acquired: Panathenaic Stadium of Herodes Attikos, Prohedria (removed from);
(Europe,Greece,Attica,Athens,Panathenaic Stadium of Herodes Attikos)

Materials: marble

Dimensions: Height: 0.7 metres (approx.)
Width: 1 metres (at rear)
Depth: 0.6 metres

Bibliography: Swaddling 2004 p. 103

Acquisition name: Collected by: William Hamilton Nisbet
With contribution from: Olympic Museum
Purchased from: Mrs Gladys Brooke
Purchased from: Julian H Brooke

Acquisition date: 2001

Acquisition notes: All marble seating had been removed from the Panathenaic Stadium by the middle of the 15th century and this piece had been removed to the Vescovaro, the Bishop's Residence, in Athens sometime before May 1801 when the Archbishop of Athens gifted it to Mr and Mrs William Hamilton Nisbet. In 1802, while being shipped to Britain, the piece was lost with the wreck of the Nentor and other pieces from the Elgin Collection off of Kythera, salvaged in 1804 it reached Britain via Malta. The piece remained in the Hamilton Nisbet collection at Biel, Lothian, until the house was sold and its contents dispersed in 1958. Mr Julian H Brooke inherited the throne in 1983.

Department: Greek & Roman Antiquities


Text from: www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=467442