Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1920.44.151
Title
Standing Draped Female Figure, after a Greek original of c. 350 BC
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
2nd century CE
Period
Roman Imperial period, Middle
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292181

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble from Western Asia Minor
Dimensions
37 cm (14 9/16 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
1920.44.151
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
62

Standing Draped Female Figure

The head and arms are missing. There are damages on the breast and back. The lower front edge of the drapery is missing. The right foot in its slipper or boot and the section of plinth in front are also broken away. There are traces of repair down the left side.

The figure is of a type of the fifth century B.C., solidly reflecting a work of about 350 B.C. It is termed a Roman copy of the second century A.D. She stands with the weight on the right hip, the left knee bent. The drapery is arranged in diagonals across the torso, while the folds beneath, covering the legs, are in sharp, deeply cut verticals. The upper outer garment, a heavy mantle, also covered the upper part of the extended left arm (which may have been made separately) and was represented in heavy folds ending in a curve at the lower back.

The remaining part of the small statue is similar to the bronze Athena from the Piraeus, in the National Museum, Athens (Bieber, 1977, pp. 33-34, fig. 61). This prototype would take the figure back at least to 350 B.C., and the extra wrinkles in the apron-like overgarment are explained as variations of the adaptors and copyists (as in the Athena Mattei in the Louvre, Paris: Waywell, 1971, pp. 373-382, pls. 66-72).

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. 80, no. 62

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