Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Koen G]

I recently had an email conversation with a curator at the Getty museum. When I asked her if she knew any parallels for the VM feline, she replied that some of its stylistic properties reminded her of an item in the collection. It is a mosaic of a griffin, "which is said to be from Syria, dated to the 5th or 6th century AD."





The "Griffin with wheel" is an older motif, associated with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. The wheel has kind of a "what comes around, goes around" association, symbolizing the restoration of cosmic order.