Statue of a Fighting Satyr

Roman art

This colossal statue portrays a bearded satyr brandishing a stick with a curved handle, of a type used by shepherds. His right arm is raised, and his right leg is moved forward, while his left arm, wrapped in the nebris knotted at his neck, is partially raised. The head and many other areas of the sculpture were expertly restored in the early seventeenth century by a sculptor in the circle of Bernini.

The model for the Borghese satyr and other works in terracotta or stone of the same subject, attested mainly in the area of Taranto, has been identified as the colossal bronze of a ‘fighting’ satyr that is mentioned in Livy and was later celebrated by Cicero as one of the monuments most dear to the people of Taranto, kept in the temple of Hestia and carved by the school of Lysippus between the late fourth and early third centuries BCE.

Previously in the Ceoli Collection, it was purchased in 1607 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese for Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio. In 1616, the sculpture was moved to the Villa di Porta Pinciana and installed in front of the back facade, where it remained until the end of the eighteenth century, when it was moved to the garden of the lake. In 1827, the restored satyr was installed in the niche in the ground floor entrance hall where it remains today.

Object details

Commentary

Previously in the Ceoli Collection, the statue was purchased in 1607 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese with others in view in the palazzo in via Giulia in Rome, including the colossal Dionysus (XLIX, Salone), for Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio, where it was described by Francucci in 1613. In about 1616, the sculpture was moved to the Villa di Porta Pinciana and installed in front of the back facade (the Facciata della Prospettiva), where it was celebrated in verse by Ludovico Leporeo in 1628 and later described by Manilli and Montelatici. At the end of the eighteenth century, it was move to the garden of the lake, where it remained until 1826, when the new collection was installed in the Casino, which had been stripped by the massive sale of works to Napoleone Bonaparte. At that time, Evasio Gozzani arranged for it to be restored by either Massimiliano Laboureur or Antonio D’Este, with instructions to preserve any old restoration work ‘in good style’. In 1827, it was installed in a niche in the ground floor entrance hall, as a pendant to the colossal Dionysus also from the Ceoli Collection.

Thanks to numerous engravings, it has been possible to reconstruct the series of restorations undergone by the sculpture. The only ancient part of the work that remains is the torso and the first part of the arms and thighs. A drawing made by Andrea Boscoli before the statue entered the Borghese Collection documents the restoration work that had already been done when it was in Palazzo Ceoli. Specifically, the stick, which is larger in the engravings by Boscoli and Marchuccius, is smaller in the one by De Cavalleriis (1594), like the one we see today. While some scholars have dated the restoration to the end of the sixteenth century, Paolo Moreno argued instead for the early seventeenth century, imagining that it was done by a sculptor in the circle of Bernini, based on the extremely high quality of the work. Herrmann Fiore agreed with this theory, seeing strong similarities between the stride of Bernini’s David and the present sculpture. As for the head, here we can see clear similarities between the present work and the head of a young satyr on an ancient bust at the Museo di Roma, which was also once in the Borghese Collection. The technique, facial features and hair of the latter sculpture suggest that both were made by the same sculptor (Di Gioia 2002). There are also similarities between the Borghese head and the Smiling Faun in the Giustiniani Collection, which is dated to the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the attribution of which is open to question (Androsov 2001, p. 241, no. B1).

The colossal statue, one third larger than life size, portrays a bearded satyr brandishing a pedum, a stick with a curved handle used by shepherds. His right arm is raised, and his right leg is moved forward. His left leg is moved back and his left arm, wrapped in part of the nebris knotted at his neck, forming a kind of shield, is partially raised to balance the aggressive pose of the torso, which is turned to the right. The head, which is entirely restored, has the same tilt as the original, as attested by the curls of the beard on the ancient torso. The animal skin tied at the neck, twist of the torso and position of the legs are the same as those of a terracotta from Taranto dated to the second century BCE. And there are close similarities between the present work and a  fragment in soft stone of a fighter as well as another terracotta, less well preserved, in the Museo Nazionale, Taranto (Moreno 2002, pp. 162–164, figs. 343, 345, 349), and a clay matrix for a torso that is a mirror image of the Taranto examples, found in a workshop in Heraclea (Policoro, M.N. Siritide, inv, 36250). Moreno considers these examples proof that the possible archetype was made in Taranto.  In this case, the latter would have been a Hellenistic work created in the style of Lysippos, as suggested by the iconographic correspondences with the satyr depicted on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, which was in turn influenced by the Alexander the Great as an adolescent surprised by a lion in the mosaic from Pella, a copy in mosaic of a bronze sculpture group by the artist from Sicyon.

A colossal satyr that might be related to the Borghese example is the colossal torso in the Farnese Collection (MANN, no inv. no., Pafumi 2010). The figure of the fighting satyr is far removed from the typical comical, buffoonish image of these semi-feral creatures and probably derives from theatrical episodes in satyr plays. This iconography was later repeated in bucolic scenes, one example of which is a sarcophagus relief depicting Pan and a nymph in the Museo Pio Clementino (inv. 849; Spinola 1999, p. 180, no. 11).

Moreno argued that the archetype was a colossal bronze statue shown ‘in the act of fighting’ described in Livy and possibly one of the promachoi given in 209 BCE by Fabius Maximus to the city of Taranto, which were seen by Strabo (Geographica, VI, 3, 1). And, further, this was probably the same satyr celebrated by Cicero (In Verremactio II, IV, 60, 135) as one of the people of Taranto’s most beloved monuments, displayed in the temple of Hestia and carved by the school of Lysippus between the late fourth and early fifth centuries BCE.

The complex style and technique used to create the Borghese sculpture suggest that it was carved during the Hadrianic period.

Jessica Clementi