Mosaic Fragment with Man Leading a Giraffe
5th century
Medium
Stone in mortar
Dimensions
170.8 × 167 × 6.4 cm (67 1/4 × 65 3/4 × 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
architectural fragment
Department
Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
126436
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This mosaic fragment was once part of a larger composition that paved the floor of a wealthy family villa in the Eastern Mediterranean. Composed of thousands of small tesserae, or stone cubes, it shows a giraffe and a human handler standing against a decorative backdrop of scallop-shaped semicircles. No doubt originally set amid a profusion of other wild and exotic animals, giraffes such as this one captivated the imagination of those who saw them in parades and public games. Writing around the ...
About the Artist
Byzantine
"Byzantine" is the collective attribution given to anonymous artists working within the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, whose creations spanned from the 4th to the 15th centuries, primarily in Constantinople and its cultural sphere. These masters produced a vast body of art that defined an era, with museums like the Walters Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago cataloging numerous works un...