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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1919.511
Title
Lower Portion of a Standing Statue, A Duck or Small Goose at the (Right) Side
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
statue, sculpture
Date
50 BCE-50 CE
Period
Hellenistic period, Late, to Early Roman Imperial
Culture
Graeco-Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/292209

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble
Dimensions
actual: 17.8 cm (7 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William de Forest Thomson
Accession Year
1919
Object Number
1919.511
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
66

Lower Portion of a Standing Statue, a Duck or Small Goose at the (Right) Side

The figure is broken below the waist by a flat, diagonal cut. The right side of the duck head is chipped. The plinth is irregularly cut. There are surface incrustations.

The folds of drapery, as preserved, are deep and fall in such a way as partly to cover the back of the bird. The ensemble stands on a plinth about .025 m thick or deep. A portion of the fragment is smoothed down one edge, but this contour has been left unmodeled.

The piece may have been part of a draped support or even a draped herm attached to the statue. A small version of the so-called Pothos of Skopas comes to mind. Copies of this statue of "Desire (or Yearning and Longing)" survive in marble, a (winged) youth gazing upward with frowning emotion while leaning against a draped support with a goose on the plinth; the image also appears in the minor arts, on gems. Skopas made the original of this version of the personification of Love's effects for a temple of Aphrodite on the island of Samothrace (Arias, 1952, pp. 89-91, 131-134, pls. XIII, XIV; Richter, 1970, p. 213, note 50).

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. 84, no. 66

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