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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1920.44.32
Title
Right Hand
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
150-50 BCE
Period
Hellenistic period
Culture
Greek?
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292174

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble from Greek islands
Dimensions
7.6 cm (3 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Museum, 1920.

Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
Accession Year
1920
Object Number
1920.44.32
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
73

Right Hand

The hand was joined to the arm by an iron pin, at a point just beyond the wrist. When the hand was detached, this pin split the marble, so that part of the outside of the wrist and arm were broken away. The ends of the thumb and four fingers have been cut away and smoothed, seemingly in antiquity.

This hand is perhaps from a small statue of Aphrodite in the Alexandrian mode. There are several possible explanations for the unusual condition of the thumb and four fingers of this right hand. The hand may have been covering the body in a gesture of modesty, and the sculptor may have cut back the fingers because he miscalculated the position of the right arm. Similarly, the hand may have been holding and partly concealed by a heavy set of tresses. For this reason, also, the fingers and thumb might not have been finished. Finally, it could have been merely that the hand was damaged in antiquity and the fingers later smoothed off.

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 90 , no. 73

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu