STATUE OF FIGHTING SATYR (120-140 A.D.)

This over lifesize statue of a satyr is derived from a bronze by a follower of Lysippus. Its resemblance to an llaliot terracotta suggests that the original was at Tarentum where other colossal gods by Lysippus were to be found. Here Cicero records that a statue of a satyr was kept by the surviving Greek community in the temple of Hestia amidst sacred mementoes of their lost independence. It is, therefore, the copy after one of the bronze colossi of fighting gods […]

STATUE OF CLAUDIUS AS JUPITER (54 A.D.)

Discovered during the excavations at Vigna Lucidi, at Santa Croce, near Frascati, carried out in 1820 (belonging to the Borghese, the Vigna had been leased to Cesare Lucidi), the statue portrays an emperor who, in the 19th-century documents, is identified as Domi-tian, but who is probably Claudius. The modern head is an imitation of the youthful “handsome Tiberius” type, as described by a contemporary, the historian Velleius Paterculus; it derives from the sculpture formerly in the Borghese Collection that was taken […]

STATUE OF SERAPIS (2nd century A.D.)

The god is portrayed sitting on an un- ornamented throne, with a footrest. He is wearing a long tunic with short sleeves, a cloak, wrapped round his legs with one end hanging over his left shoulder, and sandals. The restored right arm is outstretched, with a patera in the hand; the left rests on a sceptre. On the god’s right side is a damaged statue of Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.
The present statue resembles the one at-tributed […]

COLOSSAL HEAD OF HERA (140-150 A.D.)

The goddess has a broad forehead, made triangular in shape by a frame of large tresses of hair separated by deeply sculpted waves and kept in place by a hairband. Her face is elon¬gated by her rounded chin.. Above her large eyes, her eyebrows are regular,
while the upper lip of her half-open mouth is arched, the lower one pro-truding. The forms of her nose, mouth and chin give her face a severe aspect, which the smooth complexion transforms into an expression of […]

COLOSSAL HEAD OF ISIS (160-180 A.D.)

Only the front part of the head, including the ears and the top of the neck, is antique. Next to the modern lotus, attached to the top of forehead, there is an old mount, with a mark left by a crown, perhaps made of metal. It is not certain whether the projection of marble at the top of forehead was intended to take Isis’s attribute (a crown in the form of a throne). In any case, this is an image of goddess […]

FEMALE TORSE OF THE GRANDE ERCOLANESE- II Cent. AD

This figure derives from the Attic model, perhaps by a follower of Praxiteles, and is traditionally known as the Grande Ercolanese, because of one of the most famous copies of this model was found in the theatre of the Hercolaneum. The woman is wearing a chiton, over which is a loose himation falling to the her ankles. Both of her arms were covered with a cloak; the cornsheaf she is holding suggests that the figure was meant to be […]

FATHER AND DAUGHTER – AD 150

After its restoration with the head, Antonio Nibby identified this sculptural group of a father and his daughter as Liber and Libera.
The head represents Dionysus wearing a headband and crowned with ivy; not originally part of the group, it comes from a work of the Madrid type, an example of which is to be found in the Borghese Gallery. The structure of the face and the details of the hairstyle, headband and crown are all very similar. The present inclined position of the […]