Sunday, May 28, 2017

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (seventh part)

Seventh Room - Divine Figures
Maybe inspired by the model of the Hellenistic Tyche of Antioch, personification of the city, the work of the Eutychides in about 290 BC
According to Filippo Coarelli it is a Hellenistic work of the second century BC: Thetis, mother of Achilles has just left the weapons his son requested and she is now about to take flight
The son Achilles would be the so-called Ares Ludovisi in Palazzo Altemps with which this statue formed a single group that adorned the Temple of Neptune in today's Jewish ghetto in Rome
Both statues were placed on a pedestal identified with the Altar of Domitius Enobarbus fragments of which are now both in the Louvre and in Munich
Extraordinary “Dionysus from the Tiber” second century AD in bronze, copy of the original of the fifth century BC maybe by the workshop of Phidias known as Woburn Abbey type
It was found in the Tiber in 1885 during the foundation of a pylon of the Garibaldi Bridge
“The pose of the body is still under the influence of Polycleitos, while the slight movement of the head and the sinuous contour line of the flanks reveal the knowledge of works by Praxiteles. (...) Zanker believes it is derived from the so-called 'athlete of Stephanos', a classicistic Roman creation of the first century BC to which the hairstyle was added with long locks of wavy hair. The work would be therefore an eclectic creation of the imperial period, a reflection of the classical tastes of the time” (Brunella Germini)
“Sleeping Hermaphrodite” copy from the original by Polycles found in the area of the Opera Theater
Hermaphrodite was born from the union of Hermes and Aphrodite, and was loved by the nymph Salmacis who, once she was rejected, prayed to the gods so that they would be indissolubly united: the prayer was answered literally and they were merged into one being half man and half woman
“The complex twisting movement of the figure is a compositional motif typical of the figures of the late Hellenistic period. Another aspect revealing of the period of composition of the work is its visual impact, i.e. the possibility to be understood in different ways depending on the point of view” (Brunella Germini)
“Apollo Chigi” second century AD from Castelporziano
“It is recognizable as a classical type of work that is inspired by a Greek original in bronze, dating from the fourth century BC. The presence of adult and ephebic features and the contrast between the sharp forms of the body and the chiaroscuro hair in curls are to be considered variations experimented within the eclectic style. As a whole, these features occur in the statues of Antinous and are likely to date the work to the second century AD” (Eleonora Ferrazza)
“Black acrobat” from Via Nomentana
Two “Eros bending the bow” second century AD from an original in bronze by Lysippus, one of which from Gabii in Parian marble
“Marching Diana with quiver” second century AD from the Villa dei Quintili
“Statuette of an actor dressed as a woman” second century AD
“Papposilenus” mid-imperial reworking of the so-called Resting Satyr by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)
“Relief with maenad and goat” of the early second century AD, found in 1921 in Via Statilia, where the Horti Lamiani used to be
“Relief with sacred-idyllic landscape” of the second half of the second century AD, found in 1906 in Via del Quirinale
A bucolic scene beautifully frames Pan with his flute near a small temple with a statue of Diana the huntress and the myth of Actaeon attacked by dogs represented in the pediment
“Dionysus Sardanapalus” from the Appian Way formerly brought to Weimar by the Nazis to make the icon of Nietzsche-Dionysos conceived by the philosopher Walter Otto and returned to Rome in 1992
“The type, of which more than ten replicas are known, derives its name from the inscription 'Sardanapalus' visible on the Vatican replica, inscribed by the rich owner of the villa in which it was found. He probably associated this sumptuous image of the God to the one of the rich Sardanapalus, Assyrian king famous for his opulent and dissipated costumes, as well as the fact that he used to wear women's clothes” (Brunella Germini)
“Headless Apollo playing a lyre” second century AD from the Villa dei Quintili

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