Variant on the Large Herculaneum Woman Type

Roman art

Iconic female sculpture of a draped figure, all of which survives is the torso. The voluminous mantle (himation) envelops the body in soft drapery. The impression of movement is created by the position of the right arm, which is bent over the chest, with the right hand grasping the fabric, and the slightly advanced left leg. The figure holds a bunch of grain in her left hand.

The sculpture was carved during the Roman imperial period but based on a Hellenistic type known as the ‘Large Herculaneum Woman’, which takes its name from an exemplar unearthed in the theatre of Herculaneum. The invention of the original iconographic type, which is known through numerous copies and variants, can be traced to a group of Greek sculptors active in the second half of the fourth century BCE.

Object details

Commentary

Originally displayed in the portico, this sculpture portrays a draped female figure, all of which survives is the torso.

This iconic female figure is a copy of the Large Herculaneum Woman, an iconographic type that takes its name from an exemplar unearthed, along with a Small Herculaneum Woman, in the scenae frons of the theatre of Herculaneum (1706–1713). The two sculptures are now in the Albertinum, Dresden.

Known through numerous variants, the Large Herculaneum Woman, as a rule with a covered head (capite velato), was very popular in the Roman world, especially during the imperial period, and was often used for funerary and honorary portrait statues of matrons as much as empresses. Particularly admired for its classicising air, the Herculaneum Woman, in both the large and small versions – represented in the Borghese Collection by the works in Room V, inv. CCXXXXII and Room VIII, inv. CCXXXVI – came to represent the matronly virtues and the moral values of honour and modesty.

The figure wears a tunic covered with a voluminous mantle (himation), which envelops the body in soft drapery. The equilibrium, the right arm folded over the chest, with the hand grasping the fabric, and the slightly advanced opposite leg, discernible beneath the drapery, create the impression of movement. The left arm hangs down the side of the body and the left hand holds a bunch of grain. The differing positions of the arms are reflected in the fall of the drapery between the shoulders, chest and belly, where it gathers in triangular folds that highlight the advance of the leg beneath the fabric.

The sculpture is characterised by formal balance and a classical artistic language. There is a statue similar in iconography and style on the terrace of the Galleria Borghese (inv. CCLVIII). Another work that is comparable in terms of equilibrium and the position of the arms, mantle and attribute is found in the portico of the Museo Torlonia, which was carved in island marble and restored by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. However, the Torlonia statue, which holds poppies instead of grain, is more rigid than the Borghese sculpture, and the drapery folds are more similar to those of the mantle of the Large Herculaneum Woman exemplar known as Sabina, from Hadrian’s Villa. The use of a drill, treatment of the marble surface and rendering of the drapery suggest that the statue was carved by the first half of the second century CE.

The model’s identity, dating and workshop are still open to debate. The group of known copies and variants has suggested to some scholars that the originals were sculpted by Praxiteles or Lysippus, although others have considered the possibility of the school of the two masters or an artist from the Peloponnesian or Anatolian milieu. Scholars are also in disagreement over the dating, with some arguing for the second half of the fourth century BCE, others for the early third century BCE and still others dating the larger work to 335–325 BCE and the smaller one to 330–320 BCE.

As for the subject, some have interpreted the statues as Demeter and Kore, which would explain the figure’s differences in stature and dress as well as the attribute of grain or poppies. Others have seen them as muses or poetesses, given their appearance on sarcophagi. More recently, scholars have tended to prefer the idea of a chronological and typologically independent artistic invention conceived for funerary or honorary statue portraits of priestesses, empresses, matrons and heroines (on the type, see Daehner 2007; Alexandridis 2010, pp. 263–275; Dillon 2010, pp. 82–86; Trimble, 2017, pp. 317–352.). In any case, the formal and stylistic classicism of the Large and Small Herculaneum Woman seems to fully express the moral values of honos, decor and pudicitia, explaining the frequent use of these models in the Roman world for iconic statues of empresses, princesses and high-ranking private individuals between the first century BCE and the third century CE.

The Inventario del Fidecommesso Borghese of 1833 lists the sculpture as one of six torsos displayed in the portico ‘of various type, two of which clothed’ (p. 41, no. 7), and Antonio Nibby reported, in particular, a ‘torso of Ceres distinguished by the grain she holds in her left hand: it is displayed on the cippus of Aurelia Teofila, erected in her honour by L. Valerio Ponziano’ (Nibby 1841, p. 910).

Clara di Fazio