Statue of a Togate Man, torso
This sculpture was recorded in its current location in the Portico in 1833. The male torso is clothed in a sleeved tunic under a toga that is elegantly draped over his chest to form a voluminous balteus, from which emerges the knot of folds of the umbo. The figure is missing its head and arms. The right arm must have been held along the body and the left arm held out in front and bent at the elbow.
The toga type, rendered with a keen sculptural sense of volume, is linked to models that were popular in the first century CE. This date is further confirmed by comparison with the togate statue with the (not original) head of Menander in the Salone of the Galleria Borghese (inv. IVL).
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Borghese Collection, cited for the first time in the Portico of the Palazzina Borghese in the Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, C., p. 41, no. 7. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 19th century - Preliminary operations to the integration interventions, which do not appear to have been carried out subsequently, in the arm attachment and neck recess: regularization of joints and pin holes.
- 2008-2009 - Consorzio Capitolino di Elisabetta Zatti ed Elisabetta Caracciolo
- 2022 - Nobili - Fabrica - Antonelli (associated firms)
Commentary
This torso portrays a male figure wearing a sleeved tunic beneath a toga. The toga is draped over the chest, coming down from the right arm almost at a slant, down to the balteus and arranged in the middle in a kind of V shape that is echoed by a deep puff of fabric on the abdomen, called an umbo. The bust is missing its head and arms. The left arm, for which part of the elbow remains, must have been held out in front of the body and bent, while the right would have hung down along the body. In the Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese of 1833, the bust was recorded as on display in the Portico: ‘six torsos of various subjects, two of which richly dressed’ (p. 41, no. 7). This location was confirmed in 1841 by Nibby (p. 909, no. 8). Moreno imagined that it came from excavations carried out in Mentana between 1832 and 1833, describing it as ‘a piece of drapery of a statue measuring three palmi in height’ (2003, p. 89, no. 44).
The richness of the naturalistic and accurately described toga and the deep folds of the balteus associate the sculpture with Julio-Claudian production. This dating is further supported by comparison with a statue in the Salone of the Galleria, with a (not original) head of Menander (inv. IVL) and two others in the Museo Nazionale Romano, which have similar characteristics (Nista 1981, pp. 236–237; de Lachenal 1986, pp. 169–170).
Giulia Ciccarello
Bibliography
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1840, p. 5, n. 8.
- A. Nibby, Roma nell’anno 1838, Roma 1841, p. 909, n. 8.
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano del Palazzo della Villa Borghese, Roma 1854 (1873), I, p. 5, n. 6.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 10.
- G. Giusti, The Borghese Gallery and the Villa Umberto I in Rome, Città di Castello 1919, p. 25.
- L. Nista, Statua acefala togata, in “Museo Nazionale Romano. Le Sculture”, Roma 1981, pp. 236-237.
- L. de Lachenal, Statua di togato con testa non pertinente, in “Museo Nazionale Romano. Le Sculture”, Roma 1986, pp. 169-170.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, p. 89, n. 44.
- Scheda di catalogo 12/01008562, P. Moreno 1979; aggiornamento G. Ciccarello 2020
