Torso from a statue of Aphrodite of the Pontia/Euploia type, with a not-original portrait head

Roman art

This bust, of unknown provenance, portrays Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. The portrait head, which has been heavily reworked and restored, is not original and was adapted to the bust. The armilla and the edge of the mantle preserved on the left arm, identify the statue as an Aphrodite type traditionally associated with the epithets Pontia (created by Pontus, the sea) and Euploia (protector of sea voyages), developed during the Hellenistic period and in Asia Minor. In the Roman world, the type was used to decorate gardens and horti and thermal baths, sometimes as a fountain figure, with the water flowing from the opening in the mouth of the dolphin that served as a support in some cases, and sometimes adapted for use in portraiture, probably for funerary purposes.

Object details

Commentary

This bust portrays Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. The head, which is heavily reworked and restored, is not original and was adapted to the bust. The figure tips her head up and to the right and her hair is parted in the middle and gathered at the nape of her neck, in keeping with a type that became popular in the Classical period.

The provenance and acquisition date of the sculpture are unknown. It was documented for the first time in the Inventario Fidecommissario of 1833, in Room VIII, and described as an ‘Unidentified bust of a woman’. Not long after, it was described in the guide by Antonio Nibby as an ‘Unidentified female bust, but with the form of a Venus’.

The armilla and the edge of the mantle preserved on the left arm allow us to identify the statue as an Aphrodite type known through about twenty copies and traditionally associated with the epithets Pontia (created by Pontus, the sea) and Euploia (protector of sea voyages) (Delivorrias et al 1984, pp. 69–70, nos 599–604; Schmidt 1997, p. 201, nos 69–73). The type was developed during the Hellenistic period and in Asia Minor, probably Rhodes, inspired by various Aphrodite types from the fourth century BCE.

The original iconography can be reconstructed from the known copies. The goddess is shown standing on her right leg, with the left leg bent and raised. Her right hip is tilted outward, giving her body a sinuous shape that is accentuated by the bent right arm resting on her hip. Her left arm, the upper part of which is decorated with an armilla (not found in all the copies) is lowered and extended, resting on a support (usually an ewer set on a baluster). The goddess is portrayed while disrobing, her mantle falling down along her back and gathered in a kind of horizontal band extending from her right hip across her body, falling over her left thigh and revealing her torso down to her groin, while the other end is tucked under her left arm. In the few copies for which the head is preserved, the goddess is wearing a diadem and part of her mantle falls like a veil over the nape of her neck. Examples include the one in Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, inv. Hm 318; Oehmke 2011) and the Venus from the Ince Blundell Hall Collection, now in Liverpool (Liverpool Museum, Inv. 1959.148.0036; Delivorrias et al 1984, p. 69, no. 599).

In the Roman world, this type was used to decorate gardens and horti and thermal baths, sometimes as a fountain figure, with the water flowing from the opening in the mouth of the dolphin that served as a support in some cases. It was, however, sometimes adapted for use in portraiture, such as the Trajanic statue found outside Porta San Sebastiano in Roma, probably for funerary purposes (Rome, Musei Capitolini, Schmidt 1997, p. 201, no. 71).

The head, although heavily reworked, preserved a strong portrait-like quality, with large, bulging, deep-set eyes (the pupils and irises were incised during a modern restoration), prominent cheekbones and a small, full mouth. As already suggested, it can be compared to Hellenistic portraits from the Ptolemaic milieu, like the bronze head of Arsinoe III (217–204 BCE), daughter of Ptolemy III and Berenice II, sister and wife of Ptolemy IV, in Mantua (Museo Civico di Palazzo Te, inv. 96190279; Ghisellini 2008), the hairstyle of which is similar.

Due to their fragmentary state and heavy restoration, the Borghese sculpture and portrait head can only be generically dated to the second century.

Jessica Clementi