- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1920.44.206
- Title
- Lower Half of a Statuette of Aphrodite
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Work Type
- sculpture, statuette
- Date
- 133-31 BCE
- Period
- Hellenistic period, Late
- Culture
- Greek
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/292320
- Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Marble from Greek island
- Dimensions
- 12.5 cm (4 15/16 in.)
- Provenance
- 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
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
- Accession Year
- 1920
- Object Number
- 1920.44.206
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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- Descriptions
-
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Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
78
Lower Half of a Statuette of Aphrodite
The figure is broken off irregularly on a line through the chest. The hands and plinth are also damaged. The carving is sketchy and slightly cursory but not unfinished.
Aphrodite, or possibly a nymph, is represented standing holding the edge of her cloak with her lowered right hand. The other end of the cloak went up around her left shoulder or arm and fell down in zigzag folds along her left side.
An analogous statuette in Boston, also a gift of the Misses Sara and Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, was found on Cyprus in 1870 and is from the same type of marble (Comstock, Vermeule, 1976, p. 115, no. 176). Another variation on this theme showed Aphrodite with the drapery (himation) grasped in her left hand, a chiton covering her upper body and arms, and a small Eros perched on her left shoulder (Sotheby Parke Bernet Sale No. 4869Y, New York, 20 May, 1982, no. 145).
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
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- Publication History
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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. 92, no. 78
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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