Pteruges

[FlaviusCrispus]

Having never seen the Honorius diptych in person I can't say, but the Nicomachi/Symachi diptych is almost certainly not a forgery. Both Lawrence Nees and Dale Kinney, two late antique specialists have looked into this. Rather what the symmachi diptych reveals is the presence of several stylistic varieties in the late Antique period. This is attested to by several other objects, the projecta casket, the famous David Plates and many other late period objects from the Sveso and Mildenhall Treasures.

Eisenberg's contention is that the left, heavily damaged panel of the Symmachus diptych is authentic, but that the right panel is a poor Renaissance copy, perhaps of a badly damaged or fragmented right panel (I may have my right and left switched here, but you get the point). They don't match up at all, stylistically. There are so many things about the questionable panel that simply don't make sense, even in the context of late Antique art, that once you read his arguments, it's impossible to look at the piece quite the same way again.

Now I have no investment in its authenticity, but let me play Devil's advocate here for a minute. Perhaps it's not the artist that has a vague understanding of the musculata, but us.

OK, but compare this musculata to, say, the roughly contemporary one worn by the Colossus of Barletta (probably Valens or Valentinian I, but possibly Marcian). In one case, you're looking at a piece of armor that seems to make sense (no covering for the upper arms, for example), in another, obviously not. I would posit that in one case, you have an artist who is working from life and understands what he is looking at; in another, you have an artist "vamping" from his memory and/or imagination.

I just don't think you can look at every rather odd, wacky late Roman depiction of a muscle cuirass and say, "ah ha! — more evidence it was made from leather!" I think in many, if not most cases, it's just more evidence that the artist hadn't seen someone wearing a real muscle cuirass in a long time and was simply going from his memory, imagination and a perhaps flawed interpretation of other sculptures, paintings or whatnot.

Well I think that's a subjective argument. The stilicho diptych has many features that could be described as 'clunky', but I see your point.

While the Stilicho diptych shows a lot of Late Roman stylistic conventions (frontality and whatnot), it is in many respects well-proportioned and fully in the classical tradition. In any case it is beautififully cut and finished (note the delicate tracery of lines on Stilicho's tunic, indicating embroidery). The manner of cutting, the poses and proportions of the figures, the representation of clothing, everything is drastically different on the Honorius panels. Much of it is ill-defined and unfinished looking (what is going on with the handle on the inside of the shield, for example?). Of course, this doesn't automatically mean that the Honorius panels are fakes, it just means they were made by a less-skilled artist, whether in the fifth or fifteenth centuries.