Female Head with Serpents
This female head is currently mounted on a non-ancient bust. The figure has heavily restored facial features and hair, a full, slightly open mouth, a rounded chin and large eyes. The figure’s hair, parted in the middle, covers her ears and is gathered at the nape in soft waves. On each side, three small snakes are coiled around locks of her hair. This hairstyle evokes a few representations of Hygeia, the goddess of health, whose attribute is snakes. It is also possible, however, that the head is from a statue of Persephone, goddess of the underworld and wife of Hades. Purchased in 1607 by Cardinal Scipione along with other sculptures in the Ceoli Collection, the head was detached from the body at an unknown time. The body has been identified as the replica of the Spinnerinn (Spinner) thanks to a sixteenth-century drawing by Andrea Boscoli. The body, which was installed between 1828 and 1830 to decorate the Fontana del Fiocco at the Villa Borghese, is currently on view in the storeroom of S. Piero in Canonica.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Medium
Dimensions
height with bust 60 cm (ancient part 32 cm); head 28 cm
Provenance
Ceoli Collection; Borghese Collection (1607); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese, 1833, C, p. 45, no. 59. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- ? modern bust added to the head
- 1966, Tito Minguzzi
Commentary
This head of a woman, currently mounted on a non-ancient bust, entered the Borghese Collection of Cardinal Scipione in 1607, when it was purchased from Lelio and Tiberio Ceoli along with other sculptures. A watercolour drawing by Andrea Boscoli (1580–1590; Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, inv. F.C. 130644) shows us what the complete sculpture looked like when it was purchased and before the head was separated from the body at an unknown time. The body was paired with a different portrait head, which was stolen some time after 1966. It is unknown where the sculpture was located after its purchase. It might have been displayed in Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio, like other statues from the Ceoli Collection. Between 1828 and 1830, it was set up on the left-hand side of the monumental arch of the Fontana del Fiocco at the Villa Borghese, designed by Luigi Canina, along with two other sculptures. It remained there until 1986, when the three sculptures were replaced with copies, restored and brought to the storeroom of S. Piero in Canonica, where they remain today (Napoletano, Santolini 2013, pp. 157–160). The head, mounted on a bust, was included in the new installation of the collection in the Casino, in Room I, where Antonio Nibby described it as an ‘unknown bust’.
The facial features and hair are heavily restored. The young woman has a full, slightly open mouth, rounded chin and large eyes. The figure’s hair, parted in the middle, covers her ears and is gathered at the nape in soft waves. On each side, there are three small snakes coiled around locks of her hair. This hairstyle evokes a few images of Hygeia on Attic reliefs from the end of the fourth century BCE. The attribute of the goddess of health is the snake, one example being the serpents decorating the diadem of the Chiaramonti Hygeia (Vatican, Museo Chiaramonti, inv. 191). Stylistic analysis suggests that the work was made in a neo-Attic workshop.
As for the body, the arms are bent and held out in front of the body, the left hand holding what might be a spindle and the right hand holding the spun wool. It has been identified as a replica of the Spinnerinn (Spinner) unearthed in Vulci in 1835, and now in the Munich Glyptothek (inv. Gl 444). The statue type has been linked to the sculpture by Praxiteles cited by Pliny as the ‘Katagousa’, ‘she who spins thread’ (Naturalis Historia 24.69). Since the verb means ‘bring down’, Pliny’s term might be translated as ‘she who descends’, identifying Praxiteles’ work as a Persephone descending to the underworld.
Jessica Clementi
Bibliography
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1840, p. 11, n. 11.
- A. Nibby, Roma nell’anno 1838, Roma 1841, p. 914, n. 11.
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1854 (1873), p. 13, n. 10.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 21.
- G. Giusti, La Galerie Borghèse et la Ville Humbert Premier à Rome, Roma 1904, p. 20.
- P. Della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1954, p. 13.
- P. Moreno, Formazione della raccolta di antichità del Museo e Galleria Borghese, in “Colloqui del Sodalizio”, 5, 1975-1976, pp. 125-143, in part. p. 136, figg. 25-26.
- P. Moreno, Museo e Galleria Borghese, La collezione archeologica, Roma 1980, p. 15.
- L. De Lachenal, La collezione di sculture antiche della famiglia Borghese e il palazzo in Campo Marzio, in “Xenia”, 4, 1982, pp. 49-117, in part. pp. 52, fig. 1.
- D. Di Castro, S. P. Fox (a cura di), Disegni dell’antico dei secoli XVI e XVII dalle collezioni del Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe (Catalogo della mostra), Roma 1983, p. 104, n. 47.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, p. 254, n. 246.
- A. Campitelli, Horti Borghesiani. Sculture da Villa Borghese, in “Bollettino dei Musei Comunali di Roma”, n.s. XV, 2001, pp. 163-181.
- A. Napoletano, S. Santolini, Le sculture di Villa Borghese nel nuovo deposito del Museo Pietro Canonica, in “Bollettino dei Musei Comunali di Roma”, n.s. XXVII, 2013, pp. 153-178, in part. pp. 157-160.
- Scheda di catalogo 12/00147667, P. Moreno 1976; aggiornamento G. Ciccarello 2021.
