"Please do not step on the display base"

That rather amusing and unnecessarily officious requirement comes from a notice on the carpeted base for this enormous and undoubtedly very heavy, carved marble foot broken from a statue that would have been some 11 metres or so tall.

The exhibit is on loan from the Chatsworth Collection and is in the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery in the Lacemarket together with a selection of interesting and valuable paintings, drawings, Delftware, silver and furniture.

This exhibit is entitled "Carved marble foot with sandal - male or female".

The age ascribed is the period 150 to 50BC, and it is not clear whether the original statue was Greek or Roman. Neither is the gender clear, althought to me it looks distinctly masculine.

The attendant told us that a passing chiropodist had looked at the foot and identified two corns and an inwardly deflected little toe!......and therefore probably based on a 'live' model!