Table Leg in the Form of a Lion Head

Colored stones were used in antiquity not just for domestic vessels, but also for furniture and even architectural elements. Here, a gray-white marble with purple inclusions known as pavonazzetto has been employed for a table support. It takes the form of a feline leg (its claw foot now missing) that is capped with the head of a roaring panther, whose wide eyes may originally have been inlaid. Toward the top of the leg is a collar of foliage.

A strut, now broken away, extended behind the leg, and would have connected it to two others, forming a tripod. The table surface would have risen above the height of the panther heads but without projecting beyond them. Ancient repairs can be seen in the piecing together and an iron pin that is embedded behind.

Pavonazzetto is found in Asia Minor at Ischehisar, ancient Dokimium, between Ankara and Afyon. The quarries seem to have been first exploited in the first century BC, at which time inscriptions suggest that they may have been under the control of the imperial family. Its period of greatest use in Rome was during the second century AD, on building projects of the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.