Mosaic of a villa and fishermen
Said to have been found at Ostia, together with a banquet mosaic, for which see Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum. Sold to the museum by Sotheby's in 2007 for 510,000 USD.
Date: early fourth century AD. Meas. 0.597 x 0.59.
Auction catalogue: "Set into a terracotta frame, in minute multi-colored stone and glass tesserae within a dentate border, depicting in the rocky foreground two fishermen rounding up fish in a broad net, another rowing to right in a small skiff, each wearing a short tunic and wide-brimmed rounded hat, a large high-handled wicker basket at left, a dolphin entwined around a post at right, in the middle ground a draped man and woman sacrificing at an altar between two shrine-like structures, one pedimented, each with grilled opening in front, and in the background a sprawling complex of towers and colonnaded buildings surrounded by tall trees."
Mentioned in Christine Kondoleon, Antioch: The Lost Ancient City, Princeton 2000, 184-186, cat. nr. 68. Sotheby auction catalogue June 7 2007, lot 77.
Auction catalogue: "Provenance: Adolph Loewi, Los Angeles; Gloria Desser (1923-2004), Los Angeles, mid 1950s. The present panel is said to have been found at Ostia, the ancient port city of Rome, together with another emblema depicting an outdoor banquet with live entertainment; the latter was acquired in November 1954, also from Adolph Loewi, by The Detroit Institute of Arts (inv. no. 54.492). Both mosaics share the same size, terracotta mount, dentate border, style, and tripartite horizontal composition. For a related mosaic from Rome, perhaps also an emblema, showing a similar harbor scene see Helen Whitehouse, Ancient Mosaics and Wallpaintings (Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, vol. A.I), London, 2001, no. 36. Also see Sotheby's, New York, December 9th, 2003, no. 75."
In Toledo according to Alamy photo DC12H9, taken June 8 2013, and according to A. Velo-Gala - J.A. Garriguet Mata, "Roman window glass: an approach to its study through iconography", Lucentum 36 (2017), 159-176, 164. There are no further mentions of the mosaic in this museum, not even by the museum itself. It may have been sold immediately to a private collector.