Ivory Furniture Element: Capital in the Form of a Lotus Bud
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A piece of ivory nearly twelve centimetres high is carved fully in the round as a small column capital shaped like a lotus bud with drooping leaves. It is probably the foot or the upper part of a furniture leg, turned on a lathe: ruled preparatory lines can be seen where the craftsman marked out the profile before cutting, and the regular grooves are the signature of turning. The petals curve outward and down, the same form as the lotus capitals of Egyptian architecture, translated to the scale of a chair or a bed.
Lathe-turned elements show that Phoenician and Syrian ivory workers used the same tools as woodworkers and treated tusk as a precious timber. This piece was found in room fourteen of the Building of the Ivories at Arslan Tash, the Assyrian provincial residence at ancient Hadatu in northern Syria, in the 1928 excavations led by François Thureau-Dangin. It came to the Louvre through the partage of 1929. Furniture legs of this shape appear on Assyrian reliefs showing the king's throne and couch.
Did You Know? The grooves were cut on a lathe, so this ivory was turned like a table leg rather than carved like a statue.
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