Romanesque Figured Capital, Rhône Valley

Three-sided applied capital in marble, carved with two monstrous busts of winged sirens with serpentine tails; Romanesque work from the Rhône Valley, probably between the Velay and the Rhône regions, second half of the 12th century. The main face shows a zoomorphic mascaron (short muzzle, upright ears) flanked by two winged sirens whose serpentine bodies unfold onto the adjoining faces. Between the mascaron and the astragal emerge stylised acanthus leaves. The sirens’ faces are set into the angles of the capital, reinforcing the three-dimensional reading of the piece. Their cylindrical necks are encircled by a beaded headband worked with the drill. This is neither the classical bird-sirens nor the pure fish-sirens; the winged, scaly body ending in a fin suggests a creature at once aerial, chthonic and marine, evoking the three realms of sky, earth and sea.
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