Statue of Restored Seated Emperor as Hermes, with Modern Head

Roman art

The statue is a representation of a youthful male figure seated on a throne with a mantle covering both legs, draped over the left shoulder, leaving the torso bare. The modern head with winged headdress (petasos) together with the lyre and plectrum, inserted during the nineteenth-century restoration, gave the sculpture a new Mercury-Hermes identity. This statuary type belongs to a rather widespread series among the emperors of the Julio-Claudian age, aimed at assimilation – for propaganda purposes – to the divinity of Iuppiter-Jupiter. Archival documents attest the original presence of a head depicting Nero ‘resting after having played the kithara’, while it is likely that it corresponds to the sculpture of Tiberius enthroned seen by Manilli and Montelatici on the cypress avenue near the theatre of the second enclosure at the end of the sixteenth century.

Object details

Commentary

The statue represents a mantled youthful male figure seated on a throne. The plinth, the feet, the drapery on the legs with the folds under the (modern) lyre, the torso, and the seat are original. The figure is wearing a mantle covering both legs and draped over the left shoulder with a Schulterbausch leaving the torso bare. The torso, defined with the essential muscular masses, is slightly inclined to the right, with an upward tilt of the left shoulder, on which the mantle is draped. The fabric covers the legs completely and falls on the left side of the body with rich folds, ending with two tassels.

This statuary type is part of a rather widespread series among the Julio-Claudian age emperors, following the model of the enthroned Iuppiter-Jupiter (Maderna 1988, pp. 24-49, tables 4-16), in particular that of the Jupiter Verospi at the Vatican Museums (Liverani 1996; Giuliano 1957, p. 32). The Julio-Claudian emperors were very sensitive to this kind of representation, first and foremost Augustus, as testified by his sculpture from Cumae now in the Hermitage (inv. ГР-4191; Hallet 2005, p. 166).

Such iconography, with a clear propagandistic intent, is also adopted by other members of the Julio-Claudian gens, such as the enthroned Tiberius from Priverno in the Vatican Museums (Fuchs 1989, pp. 53ff) or the one from Villa Lucidi in Galleria Borghese (cat. XXVII); the enthroned Claudius from Herculaneum in the MANN (cat. 6040) or the Caligula from Nemi, recently recovered from the illicit antiquities market (Nemi, Museo Navi Romane, cat. 146828, Ghini 2013). In all these examples besides their larger-than-life-size, the emperor is seated on a throne, his mantle draped over his legs and left shoulder, while his right arm is stretched forward and holding an attribute, usually an orb, while his raised left arm rests on a sceptre or lituus.

In the Borghese piece, the nineteenth-century restoration entrusted to Antonio D’Este, replaced the head with a modern one depicting Hermes-Mercury with winged petasos, inspired by the most widespread iconography of the god in the Roman world between the first and third century CE (see, for example, the Vatican sculpture, Amelung 1908, no. 3, table 81), adding the attributes of the lyre and the plectrum. Archival documents, however, attest the original presence of an ‘ancient adapted’ head depicting Nero ‘in the act of resting after playing the kithara’.

According to a hypothesis made by Paolo Moreno, since on the occasion of the new nineteenth-century display of the collection in the Casino Borghese the statue was placed together with three other ‘seated figures’ coming from the cypress avenue near the theatre of the second enclosure, it is plausible to assume that even this statue was first displayed in the gardens of the villa. If that were the case, the statue could then coincide with the one described in the late sixteeenth century as ‘Tiberius with sword in his right, and the volume in the left’ by Manilli and Montelatici.

The quality of the drapery allows us to date this statue to the Julio-Claudian period.

Jessica Clementi