Roman
Lion’s head handle
2nd-early 3rd century AD
bronze
Mary B. Jackson Fund 2003.106

The leonine qualities of strength and ferocity have made lions appropriate guardian figures for millennia. Their carved representations graced gates and tombs in ancient Greece and often decorated Roman sarcophagi (coffins) as symbols of victory over evil and death.

Lions were imported from Africa by sea into Italy — as ancient representations of caged lions in ships indicate — and the modeling of this lion suggests that the artist was able to study live beasts. This bronze is a Roman translation of a Greek form first appearing in the 5th century BC. Four iron rivets are visible in its mane, the attachments for a door, chest or perhaps a sarcophagus.

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