Leech Fibula with Ring

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Artist
Name	Unknown
Basic Info
Period	Orientalizing period to Archaic
Created in	Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe
Century	7th-6th century BCE
Culture	Italic
Dimensions	Fibula: 1.2 x 3.2 x 0.5 cm (1/2 x 1 1/4 x 3/16 in.) Ring: 2.1 cm (13/16 in.)
Harvard Museum
Department	Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art & Numismatics
Division	Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact	am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Context

This very small leech fibula is made from one piece of metal; the spring has a triple coil, and the catchplate is long and thin. The bow is decorated with three small panels of linear incisions: two are horizontal grooves flanking a panel with vertical grooves (1). The fibula is fastened to a thin wire ring (2).
 
NOTES:
 
1. Compare H. Donder, Die Fibeln, Katalog der Sammlung antiker Kleinkunst des Archäologischen Instituts der Universität Heidelberg 3.2 (Mainz, 1994) 35, 38-39, and 63-70, nos. 19 and 36, pls. 4 and 7; and A. Naso, I bronzi etruschi e italici del Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Kataloge vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Altertümer 33 (Mainz, 2003) 242, nos. 429-30, pl. 102.
 
2. For another fibula with a decorative ring attached, see V. Palone, “Le fibule navicella,” in Il Museo delle Antichità Etrusche e Italiche 3: I bronzi della collezione Gorga, ed. M. G. Benedettini (Rome, 2012) 98-125, esp. 119, no. 370.
 
Lisa M. Anderson

TechnicalDetails

Technical Observations

The patina is green with rust accretions; the rust may have been deposited by an iron object placed adjacent to the fibula during burial. The surface is pitted in many locations from corrosion.
 
The fibula was cast from a wax model, probably formed directly in the wax. The pin and catchplate sections were cold worked into shape from the cast metal on either side of the bow. Incised decorative lines on the bow section are very sharp in detail and were punched into the metal after casting. The attached ring is only 1.7 mm thick and has a slightly irregular surface; it was probably formed by hammering, although no join is visible on the corroded surface.
 
Henry Lie (submitted 2012)

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Transfer from the Alice Corinne McDaniel Collection, Department of the Classics, Harvard University