Deer

Roman art

This small-scale sculpture was probably part of a group in which the deer was portrayed being attacked by other animals. The motif of animals attacking a deer was popular during the Hellenistic period, using a naturalistic language characterised by realism and the heightened portrayal of human emotions rediscovered in the animal world. The model for the Borghese sculpture, itself datable to the second century CE, would have been from that period. During the Roman period, the motif was widely used in the funerary and domestic contexts, as attested by numerous sarcophagi and statues with a similar subject. The terror-struck animal is portrayed with tense muscles in the neck and muzzle and wide eyes.

Object details

Commentary

In this sculpture, the uneasy animal has its front right leg raised, its left leg resting on the ground and its back legs squatting. Its muzzle is pointed upward, its eyes are wide, and its horns and ears are well defined. The muscles in the neck and muzzle are extremely tense and the mouth is tightly closed. The anatomy of the small figure is quite detailed. A trunk beneath its body serves as support. The sculpture was probably part of a group in which the deer was defending itself from attack.

Listed for the first time in the Inventario fidecommissario of the collection of 1833 in Room III of the Galleria, the sculpture was later mentioned in Room XIV on the first floor, the Loggia del Lanfranco, in the inventory of 1859 (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Archivio Borghese 426, c. 16), a location confirmed in the guides to the Galleria starting with Venturi (1893, p. 50). in 1997, it was moved to storage – in connection with the project for the reopening of the museum – until early in the twenty-first century, when it was moved back to Room XIV, its historical and current location.

The sculpture is a Roman replica, datable to the second century CE, of a Hellenistic type. The motif of the deer attacked by animals was already common in hunting scenes in the late fourth century BCE, as attested by a few mosaics, including the one found in the House of the Abduction of Helen in Pella, Greece, attributed to the sculptor Lysippus (Moreno 1998, pp. 13–17, fig. 5). The later Hellenistic period is marked by the discovery of the animal world and the attribution of human sentiments to beasts. The subject is realistically portrayed, especially in the handling of the features and the dramatic expression, which reveals the artist’s ability to perceive the suffering of animals. Ovid is similarly sympathetic in his narration of the death of Actaeon, mauled by his own dogs having been turned into a deer by the goddess Diana as punishment for having surprised her while she was bathing, nude, in a spring (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.155–252). During the Imperial period, the iconographic theme was mostly found in private contexts, in both the funerary sphere, as attested by numerous sarcophagi, and the domestic one, where it was used to decorate gardens to evoke a personal marble paradeisos. This group also includes two sculptures of deer attacked by a pack of dogs, unearthed in the garden of the House of the Deer in Herculaneum (Pesando, Guidobaldi 2006, p. 231, fig. 130).

As for the Borghese sculpture, the same tense neck muscles are also found in a sculpture of the same subject unearthed in the House of Camillo in Pompeii (Serpe 2008, p. 137, n. C27) and two others in the Vatican Museum (Amelung 1903–1908, pp. 328–329, no. 107, pl. 39; pp. 365–366, no. 173, pl. 39).

Giulia Ciccarello