1920.44.32: Right Hand
SculptureIdentification 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
- Permissions
-
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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