Byzantine capital, 1st–8th centuries.

Byzantine capital, 1st–8th centuries.
Limestone.
Provenance: M.V. Collection, Madrid.
Measurements: 28 x 24 x 24 cm.

Provenance: Estate of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló.
Artistic and heritage collection originating in the legacy of Catalan painters Ramon Martí Alsina (1826–1894), a seminal figure of 19th-century Catalan Realism, and his son Ricard Martí Aguiló (1857–1935).

Passed down and enriched across successive generations, the collection brings together works from the original holdings of both artists alongside acquisitions made by their descendants. Dedicated to preserving and recovering the family legacy, the descendants actively reacquired works by the painters as they entered the market, progressively expanding the collection to encompass paintings, sculptures, archaeological artifacts, and other items of artistic and historical significance.
Byzantine capital carved from limestone, dating from the 1st to the 7th centuries, with a structure decorated with stylized acanthus leaves. It thus represents a stylized and geometric evolution, in the Byzantine style, of the Corinthian capital, the most representative element of this order. In its original form, the Corinthian capital features the same inverted bell shape that we see here. Within Byzantine architecture, there are two main types of capitals. The so-called cubic capital, decorated with perforated elements and crowned by an inverted truncated pyramid-shaped cymatium, and the so-called Corinthian capital, named for its similarities to the Greco-Roman order, from which it inherits the use of acanthus leaves, although it is more simplified in its structure and forms, and is also usually crowned by a cymatium similar to that of the cubic capital.