A HELLENISTIC GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A GODDESS

细节

A HELLENISTIC GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A GODDESS
CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

The goddess is standing with her weight on her right leg, her left leg relaxed and bent at the knee, wearing a himation wrapped snugly around the upper body over a chiton, its refined folds conforming to the shape of the body underneath and contrasting with the abundant vertical folds of the chiton which splays revealing her sandaled feet, her right arm is bent across her body, the hand grasping the himation and supporting her left elbow, her head is tilted slightly to the left as if to gaze at the apple or pomegranate held in her raised left hand, her hair is center-parted and tied into a chigron in back, she wears a center-shaped stephane, and has fine features, with rimmed eyes, a slender nose, parted lips, and a small rounded chin, 9 7/8in. (25.1cm.) high

来源

The William Herbert Hunt Collection

出版

Boucher, Small Bronze Sculpture, p. 175, fig. 18.
Cody, Wealth of the Ancient World, no. 39.
Sotheby's, The William Herbert Hunt Collection, lot. 42

拍品专文

The pose is derived from the Pudicitia (modesty) type which developed in the 5th century B.C. and continued to be used by the Romans. The closest parallel is the figure of the Athenian Cleopatra, wife of Dioskourides, dedicated near the theatre on Delos in 138/137 B.C.

Due to the lack of an attribute, this goddess cannot be positively identified. Hera, Eris, or Aphrodite have been suggested, providing that the fruit in her hand is an apple; if a pomegranate, then she could be Persephone. Hygeia has also been suggested, but there is no evidence for her snake. Whatever her identity, it can be said with certainty that this is one of the finest gilded bronze statuettes surviving from antiquity.