Coptic textile from Count Alexey Bobrinsky's collection in the State Hermitage: the history of one mistake
Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. X [XXV], nr. 2, Istorie. Muzeologie
Keywords: Coptic textile, the Imperial Hermitage, Count Aleksei Alekseevich Bobrinsky, an ethnographer, Alexander Kakovkin.
Abstract: In the late 1880s, Count Alexey Alexeyevich Bobrinsky, an ethnographer and art historian, made a gift of 29 fragments of Coptic textile to the Imperial Hermitage. However, publications describing the history of the Coptic collection of the Hermitage and using only initials of the donator, attribute the gift to another member of this noble family - Count Alexey Alexandrovich Bobrinsky, Chairman of the Imperial Archaeological Commission. Meanwhile, the documents preserved in two St Petersburg archives, the Russian State Historical Archive, and Archive of the State Hermitage Museum clearly state the name of the donator.
Count Alexey Alexeyevich Bobrinsky was a man who selflessly cared for the enrichment of the museum collections, and his name should be remembered along with the names of other patrons of the State Hermitage Museum.
List of illustrations: Fig. 1. Count Alexey Bobrinsky (1852-1927). Fig. 2. Textile "Eros" (Inv. № DV-13216). The State Hermitage Museum. Fig. 3. Textile "Orpheus" (Inv. № DV-13217). The State Hermitage Museum. Fig. 4. Silk fabric with a horseman and an animal in medallion (Inv. № DV-8889). The State Hermitage Museum. Fig. 5. Colored striped flax and wool textile (Inv. № DV -8890, 8891). The State Hermitage Museum.
The item is the lower part of a leg of a festive table made of white and gray marble. In the upper part, it has a protrusion, similar to a Doric capital, on the horizontal platform of which a square recess is engraved, designed to fix the second part of the leg (upper). The lower part of the leg is made in an anthropomorphic style, and, in our opinion, there are two variants of identifying the depicted character...
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The item is the lower part of a leg of a festive table made of white and gray marble. In the upper part, it has a protrusion, similar to a Doric capital, on the horizontal platform of which a square recess is engraved, designed to fix the second part of the leg (upper). The lower part of the leg is made in an anthropomorphic style, and, in our opinion, there are two variants of identifying the depicted character. The first involves the image of the head of the young Heracles (Heracles - Ἡρακλῆς) (beardless), the most favorite hero of antiquity, wearing on his head the skin of the Nemean lion - Λέων της Νεμέας, a vicious monster from Greek mythology who lived in Nemea and was eventually killed by Heracles. The first labor of Heracles, of the twelve set by King Eurystheus (his cousin), was to kill the Nemean lion and bring his skin to the king. It is also known from Greek mythology that the lion of Nemea took the form of a beautiful woman in order to seduce the inhabitants of neighboring villages, who wanted to save the girl from danger. Upon entering the cave, a man saw the woman, who usually pretended to be wounded, and rushed to help her. When he approached her, the woman turned into a lion and killed him. Then the lion devoured the man, giving his bones to Hades - ᾍδης, the god of Hell, who lived in the kingdom of shadows. The second version of the anthropomorphic image interpretation suggests Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia in the second half of the 4th century BC, one of the most famous heroes of the Greek world, who sometimes is depicted as Hercules - wearing a lion's skin. Some researchers consider the custom of wearing the skin of a slain lion a sign of royal power. The word βασιλεύς itself, translated from ancient Greek, means "walking the path of the lion", that is, the king. This title was held by the Greek kings from the Homeric period, and later, starting from the 7th century AD - by the Byzantine emperors.
