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- 202
- Finger of a right hand, with dowel hole
- 3rd-4th c. AD?
- Densely grained white marble (Italian) with no streaking, polished to a 'soapy' surface.
- L. 3.9 cm, th. 5 x 1.3 cm, at tip ca 9.5 x 7 mm. Nail: l. 1.8 mm. Dowel hole, diam. 4 mm, depth ca 6 mm.
- Finger intact as attachment, fresh chips at the end and at one side of the nail, polish preserved. Tiny strut-spur broken away from junction with element behind the finger, surface polish now lost.
- This is the extended little finger of a very small, plump right hand. It was attached by a now-lost metal pin, originally or as repair, set in a deep dowel hole (6 mm into a ca 1.1 cm long lower finger-joint.). The fleshy finger is especially plump at each joint, and padded at the tip, which is slightly everted upwards. The nail is clipped short, with a pronounced mounded cuticle ridge.
- The rendering of the digit is similar to that of the fingers on the larger hand of Hercules in the Amazon group, in the same or similar marble. It likely comes from an under-life-sized figure of a female or a child, likely mythological.