Casket with Warriors in Combat

Description On this casket, traditional representations of the Labors of Herakles (Hercules) have been transformed into scenes of curly-haired cupids engaged in various forms of military combat. The object thus gives us a good impression of the lighter, at times comical quality of Byzantine secular art. Such boxes were probably used to hold valuables or important documents.

Exhibitions

• Early Christian and Byzantine Art. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1947.
• Artful Deception: The Craft of the Forger. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Grosse Pointe Shores; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City; Portland Museum of Art, Portland; The Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia; Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester; The Barnum Museum, Bridgeport. 1987-1992.

Provenance Tycon and Smith, Paris, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929