Statue of a Lion of alabaster

Roman art

The sculpture depicts a crouching lion; the larger size of the head, together with the diversity in the material and the insert behind the mane, found during the last restoration, reveal that a 16th-century fountain mask was repurposed to replace the original head. The analysis conducted on that occasion, supported by documentary sources, also suggested that there was originally a putto sitting on the lion. The work belongs to a type of ornament of Hellenistic inspiration widely attested to in the central-Italic and Adriatic areas in association with funerary monuments: in this context, the lion was a metaphor for the violence of death and, at the same time, of exaltation of the deceased. 

Originally part of Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s collection, in 1607 the sculpture was acquired by Giovanni Battista Borghese. Documented in Room I until the early 19th century, it was placed in Room III when the new collection of Antiquities was set up.

Object details

Commentary

Purchased in 1607 by Giovanni Battista Borghese, the sculpture, which depicts a crouching lion, is described in the inventory of the collection of Giovanni Battista Della Porta as a “seated yellow marble lion with a little Bacchus”, and again, a few years later, in the inventory of the estate of the same Prince Giovanni Battista, as a “yellow breccia marble lion with a putto on it” (De Lachenal 1982, p. 93, no. 212, p. 97, no. 79).

It is probably the same sculpture that is mentioned later (1617) in the order for payment for the restoration work carried out by the master stonemason Bernardino Radi, who worked for more than two decades together with his brother Agostino in various construction sites promoted by the Borghese family and, in particular, at the Villa Pinciana (Campitelli 2004). From that document, it is clear that the central part of the sculpture had elements added during restoration work, as if the figure that surmounted it had been missing, as well as the tail (Moreno, Viacava 2003, p. 194). In fact, restorations in the late ‘90s revealed that the feline’s body was reassembled from different alabaster fragments, especially at the belly, neck, left hind leg, and tail (Moreno 1997).

In the 18th century, Montelatici and Lamberti recall it displayed in Room I, where it was still located according to the inventory of 1812, preserved from being sold to Napoleon Bonaparte because it was believed to be a modern work (De Lachenal 1982, p. 104). When the new collection of Antiquities was set up in the Casino, the sculpture was moved to Room III. Nibby saw it there, and appreciated its material but not its execution “de’ tempi bassi [carried out quickly]” – and where it is still displayed today. 

The presence of a rounded insert in the centre of the lion’s mane, corresponding to a circular cavity in the centre of the throat, as well as the disproportionate size of the head, the variation in the veining and shape of the alabaster, confirm that the feline’s head was originally a 16th-century fountain mask, later repurposed to complete the sculpture at a time after Radi’s intervention. Animals of more precious materials were regularly found in 17th-century collections, such as the tiger in paonazzo marble in the collection of Lelio Orsini, or the wild boar in morato bigio in the Borghese collection, today in the Louvre; funerary lions were quite common, also in non-precious materials, such as the two travertine examples at Villa Vecchia Pamphilj (Mangiafesta 1998).

The Borghese lion shows close similarities to lions from Egyptian settings and specifically, from the Ptolemaic age: the crouching position in particular, with the tail placed over the hind legs, recalls the limestone lion from the Temple of Isis Thermouthisa Medinet Madi, now preserved in the Civic Archaeological and Numismatic Collections of Milan (Moreno, Viacava 2003, p. 195). This iconography is reiterated on a stele in marble from Tebtynis, dedicated to the goddess (Fayum), 2nd century CE (Rome, MNR, No. Inv.121190).

The piece belongs to an ornamental typology of Hellenistic inspiration quite common to central-Italic and Adriatic culture, particularly between the Late Republican and Early Imperial ages, in association with funerary monuments generally with a dice or cylindrical drum or cubic structure with a cusped aedicule, documented by several specimens still in situ at Pompeii, Sepino, and Aquileia (Marini Calvani 1980; Todisco 2018, pp. 7-11). In this context, the lion – the guardian of the tomb –  had the function of a metaphor for the violence of death and, at the same time, the exaltation of the deceased. 

Jessica Clementi