Statue of Athena Parthenos

Roman art

The Borghese torso is a replica of the Athena Parthenos (the Virgin Goddess), the famous chryselephantine colossal statue that stood twelve metres high and was sculpted by Phidias in 438 BCE for the cella of the Parthenon, on the Athenian Acropolis, and is one of the most renowned works of antiquity. In accordance with the traditional iconography, the goddess is portrayed standing with her weight on her right leg and her left leg is moved back.  The sculpture was conceived as a hieratic cult figure, in a rigorously frontal pose. She is wearing a Doric peplos with a voluminous overfold, cinched at the waist by a serpent belt knotted in front with their tails and fastened in the back with their heads. Her aegis, made from the skin of Amalthea the goat, protects the goddess’s chest like a cuirass and has the head of a Gorgon in the middle with serpents rolled up along the border. Although the Borghese statue is disfigured and the surface is eroded due to long exposure to the elements, it still stands out for its fine workmanship. The provenance of the statue is unknown, as is the date of its entry into the Borghese collection. What is certain is that it was installed in the Portico after 1833.

Object details

Commentary

The provenance of the torso of Athena is unknown, as is the date of its entry into the Borghese Collection. It was not included in the Inventario Fidecommissario of 1833, and so it must have been installed in the Portico after that year. It is mentioned for the first time in the Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese (1840), and it was still in the Portico when Venturi published his guide. It was moved to Room V in the middle of the following century. Although Schreiber wrote that it was unearthed during excavations carried out during that time, he provided no documentary evidence to support this theory and it is more likely that, as argued by Botta Morizio, the sculpture is the Athena Parthenos depicted in Rome in the sixteenth century in a drawing in the Codex Pighianus, with a few differences, which can be attributed to either mistakes or arbitrary changes made by the artist, besides prolonged exposure to the elements (Botta Morizio 1972, pp. 14–17). In any case, it cannot be identified with certainty as any of the statues of Minerva/Pallas described by Manilli or Montelatici in the Villa, since other sculptures of the same subject were also there, including the Athena Parthenos that was later sold to Bonaparte along with other works in the collection and known as the Minerva au Collier (Louvre, inv. MA 91).

The Borghese torso is a replica of the Athena Parthenos, the famous chryselephantine colossal statue that stood twelve metres high and was sculpted by Phidias in 438 BCE for the cella of the Parthenon, on the Athenian Acropolis, as a symbol of the greatness of Athens under Pericles; it is one of the most renowned works of antiquity (on the type, see Nick 2002; Davison 2009). The size of the statue, materials used and premature loss of the work, already during the fifth century BCE, meant that its iconography was spread through Attic reliefs starting in the fourth century BCE. In accordance with the traditional formula, the goddess is standing with her weight on her right left while her left leg is moved back. The sculpture was conceived as a hieratic cult figure, in a rigorously frontal pose. She is wearing a Doric peplos with a voluminous overfold called a apoptygma, cinched at the waist by a serpent belt knotted in front with their tails and fastened in the back with their heads. The scaled aegis protects the goddess’s chest like a cuirass. It is divided into two parts on the chest and closed in the middle by a gorgoneion with serpents rolled up along the border. The Borghese sculpture is missing its head and arms. According to some scholars, the Ricciardi head might have belonged to the torso, not least because the dimensions are compatible (Nick 2002, p. 246, A28).

According to Pliny (Naturalis Historia 36.18) and Pausanias (I.24.5), the left hand of the statue of the Parthenos rested on the edge of a shield decorated with scenes of Amazonomachy in relief on the outside and gigantomachy on the inside, with an enormous snake on the right. The right hand, extended out in front of the body, rested on a column that supported a winged Victory. None of these decorative elements are found in the Borghese statue and the upper border of the sole of the sandal of which is embellished with a braid motif, rather than the centauromachia that instead decorated Phidias’s colossus. The statuettes of the Lenormant Athena and the Varvakeion Athena (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. nos 128; 129) are particularly helpful for the reconstruction of the iconography of the present sculpture.

Some scholars have linked the Borghese replica, based on style, to the Athena from Santa Marinella, now in the Museo Archeologico, Civitavecchia (Nick 2002, p. 245, A25), and the statue from Villa Wolkonsky (Bucolo 2020, pp. 66–67), which is similar for the type of belt, the handling of the scaly aegis, the tightly curled locks on the shoulders and the system used to attached the arms and head. These iconographic and technical similarities have led to the conclusion that the works belong to a single group of replicas created between the end of the Hadrianic period and the early Antonine period. The Borghese sculpture stands out within this group for its fine workmanship.

Jessica Clementi