Fragment of a Decorative Relief

89 Fragment of a Decorative Relief Fragment is irregularly cut along edges. There are some surface chips. The back or bottom is flat. The fragment is either architectural or from a large ensemble of furniture. Linked floral motifs, palmette and honeysuckle, are carved in low relief around the curved outer or upper surface. A suggestion of carving in relief appears to begin on the raised, flat, circular inner surface. The bottom or back is flattened off with a claw chisel. Worked in a competent archaistic style, the floral designs, including a stylized date palm, suggest a date from Sulla (80 B.C.) to Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Traces of a rasp around the leaves of the palmettes might indicate carving of the Imperial period, as late as the second century A.D. Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer