ClassificationsGreek and Roman Art
Portrait Statue of a Woman
CultureGreek
PeriodHellenistic
Date1st Century BCE
MediumMarble (Paros 2)
Credit LineGift of Ms. Louise Staton Gunn
Dimensions64 x 23 x 17 in. (162.6 x 58.4 x 43.2 cm)
Object number2012.011.001
Label TextThis fragmented statue of a standing woman once stood in a niche, probably on the façade of a public building like a theater. She stands with her weight on her right leg and her left leg bent and slightly extended to the side. She wears a long chiton underneath a himation (mantle) wrapped tightly from left to right around the hips, thighs, and upper body. Her left arm originally rested by her side underneath her himation, while her right arm was held against her chest, pulling the edge of the fabric forward and across her neck. This pose and the distinctive way in which the drapery has been wrapped around her upper body are characteristic of a popular statue type known as the Large Herculaneum Woman (named after a complete statue found in the Roman town of Herculaneum). Symbolizing the feminine virtues of elegance and modesty, this body type was replicated widely in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, typically for honorific statues commemorating the civic patronage of prominent elite women. This example would have been fitted with an individualized portrait head, carved separately and inserted into a hollow in the neck.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, January 14, 2013 - Present
Published ReferencesPaul Arndt, Photographische Einzelaufnahmen antiker Sculpturen (Munich: Verlagsanstalt fur Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1893), 52-53, number 2878.
H. Stuart Jones, A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome: The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), 240, number 50, plate 88.
ProvenanceSaid to ex coll. Signora Castellani. Ex coll. Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy, 1893. Ex coll. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, Italy, 1926. Ex coll. Lynn R (1920-1998) and Karin Akers, Europe and United States, purchased from Antichita Alberto Di Castro, Rome, Italy, March 10, 1966. Ex coll. Louise Staton Gunn, United States, purchased from Akers through Knox Clayton, January 31, 2002.
Status
On viewCollections
- Greek and Roman Art
mid 2nd Century BCE
late 1st-2nd Century CE
4th Century BCE
3rd century BCE
1st Century BCE-1st Century CE
1st-2nd Century CE
2nd Century BCE
282-246 BCE
1st-2nd Century CE
late 1st-early 2nd Century CE
664-525 BCE
