Statue of a Woman, restored as Urania (head not original)

Roman art

This statue depicts a young woman facing forward with her right leg slightly to one side. She is wearing a light, diaphanous chiton that clings to her body and a thin belt knotted around her waist. A himation, or cape, is slung over her right shoulder and draped over her bent left arm. She has a globe in her left hand and a compass in her right, both modern. This sculpture has been identified with the muse Urania and seems to be connected to the Aphrodite Louvre-Naples iconographic type, although it also presents great similarities with the figure of Electra in the sculptural group preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Object details

Commentary

The figure is facing forward, its weight resting on the left leg, while the right is bent to the side, only the tip of the toes touching the ground. The left arm is outstretched and bent, a globe in its hand; the right is extended along the body, holding a compass. The figure is wearing a light, sleeveless chiton fastened on the right shoulder leaving the left breast bare as it slides down. The diaphanous garment adheres perfectly to the body, setting off its contours. A braided belt is wound twice around the waist and knotted on the front, whence folds of drapery depart. In the lower section, the cloth falls to the ground forming two sheafs of vertical folds, one between the legs and the other on the left. The short cape is thrown over the right shoulder and collected over the left forearm which is held forward and bent. 

In 1832, Nibby described ‘a statue of Urania crowned in olive branches, smaller than life, made of Luni marble, with a globe in her left hand and a compass in her right, both objects attributed to a modern conservator who bestowed these upon her to make her the muse of Astronomy’ in Room 1 (p. 56). In the 1841 edition, he further recalled it ‘placed atop a round altar depicting a Bacchic dance’ (p. 914). In 1893, Venturi considered it a ‘statue reduced to representing a muse’ (p. 20). Lippold recalled the many restorations carried out on the sculpture: the left arm, the left hand holding the globe and the right holding a compass were added during conservation. Though our scholar didn’t consider the instrument pertaining to the iconography of the Muses, he believed a portion of one of the its shafts near the wrist to be antique (1925, p. 5, no. 2718). In the study undertaken by Bernoulli in the late nineteenth century on the different representations of Aphroditis, the ‘Muse Urania’ found in Villa Borghese was ascribed, together with many other copies, to the type wearing a chiton with a cape slung over its shoulder. However, the writer further elaborated: ‘whether its attributes are antique, as Clarac says, is yet to be confirmed’ (1873, p. 89, no. 24; 1850, p. 532).  

In 1957, Calza embraced a theory put forward by Borda acknowledging a similarity between the Borghese work, which she considered Neo-Attic in style, and the ‘type of the Electra pertaining to the Pasiteles circle’ (1957, p. 11, no. 77; 1953, p. 58, note 13, fig. 2). This hypothesis was later reiterated by Moreno, though he added two others: one made a connection between the Borghese statue and a Muse belonging to the Galleria Colonna, considered a reworking of a fifth century BCE original; the other believed it to be one of many replicas of the Louvre-Naples type Aphrodites (1997, p. 105; 2003, pp. 142–143, no. 107). 

Bieber thought it was a likeness of the Venus Genetrix, with the chiton gently sliding down the left shoulder to bare the breast and the cape bunched into a sheaf on the right shoulder, which was what one of the sculptures that stood in the Forum of Caesar in 46 BCE must have looked like (1977, p. 47, fig. 155). In 1996, Brinke considered it a female figure restored as Urania in modern times. Recalling the many conservation efforts, this scholar pointed out its unrefined execution and noticeably static stance which, based on her stylistic observations, she considered ascribable to the Antonine era (1996, p. 45, R37, pl. 42a). According to Herkenrath, the iconographic type of a female figure wearing a gauzy, diaphanous dress held by a belt resting on the hips was typical of that time (1905, pp. 245–256). This subject was also dealt with in a study by Winkler, who considered the ‘deep belt’ a literary trope and attempted to find archaeological and visual proof of this (1996, p. 124, no. 1).  

In conclusion, the Borghese sculpture is apparently connected to the iconographic type of the Louvre-Naples Aphrodite and comparable with a work with a similar subject preserved at Palazzo Colonna, as well as with another identified as Flora and found at Villa Medici (Cecchi, Gasparri 2009, p. 208). 

Based on stylistic observations and known comparisons, the Borghese sculpture seems ascribable to the first century CE. 

Giulia Ciccarello