Statue of a Female Figure Wearing a Mantle, Restored as Ceres

Roman art

The sculpure, probably an iconic statue originally, represents a female figure, erroneously restored as the deity Ceres, wearing a long chiton and mantle. The drapery recalls typical elements of Late Classical and Early Hellenistic sculptural production, suggesting a probable elaboration of its iconographic solution in an Asia Minor context, where precise correspondences can be found.

Included in the inventory of sculptures that from Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio and Villa of Mondragone were transported to Villa Pinciana in 1819, this statue was first displayed in Room I and later in Room VIII until it was finally placed in Room V at the end of the nineteenth century.

Object details

Commentary

Included in the inventory of sculptures that from Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio and Villa di Mondragone were transported to Villa Pinciana in 1819, this statue was restored by Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur and exhibited first in Room I, which showcased another probably misread statue of Ceres; it was then moved to Room VI (today Room VIII) where Nibby saw it in 1832, while Venturi  in 1893 tells us its location was in Room V, where it is currently displayed.

The statue depicts a draped female figure standing on her right leg, while the left leg, free and positioned to the side, is slightly bent at the knee, and moved back; the ponderation of the statue determines a slight inclination of the torso, with the right hip higher than the left. The figure wears a long chiton with a himation on top; the tunic, with its broad rounded neckline reaches the ground, leaving the toes uncovered, with a dynamic rendition of the fabric’s thin yet heavy folds, which follow the lateral movement of the legs. The ample himation envelops the matron’s body and head, drapes on her left arm, where in her hand she holds ears of wheat which are the result of a nineteenth-century restoration. On her chest, the himation covers her right breast, comes up onto the left shoulder, passing behind and under the elbow of the bent right arm, whose restored hand holds a fold of the fabric, which then continues to the left shoulder, where the fabric unfolds like a cape.

Integrated by the nineteenth-century restorer as Ceres with a non-original head, this statue originally had an iconic function; the drapery recalls elements typical of Late Classical and Early Hellenistic sculptural production, evoking comparisons with the portrait statues of the priestess of Demeter Nikokleia of Knidos (London, British Museum, inv. 1301) and Nikeso of Priene (Berlin, Antikensammlung 1928), in particular for the relationship between the clothing and the body, as well as similarities with the draped statue in the Museo Civico in Venice (EA 2649), suggesting a probable elaboration of the iconographic solution in an Asia Minor context (Linfert 1976, pp. 40-41; Mendel 1996, p. 27). Numerous examples of draped female figures in various free elaborations of drapery and clothing with an honorary and commemorative or funerary function are known from the Hellenistic period; in Roman sculptures the funerary purpose prevails.

This Borghese sculpture finds exact comparisons with a statue from the first century BCE from Magnesia on the Maeander today in the Istanbul Museum (inv. no. 610; Mendel 1966, pp. 26–27, no. 824), while a similar statue was chosen in Perge to portray Julia Domna and is now in the Antalya Museum (inv. no. A 3268; Inan 1974, pp. 657 ff, tables 210s; Özgür 1996; Alexandridis 2004, p. 199, no. 217, p. 258).

In our case, the treatment of the drapery may suggest a generic dating to the second century CE.

Jessica Clementi