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The Date of the Athena Rospigliosi Type

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Oscar Waldhauer
Oscar Waldhauer
Affiliation:
Petrograd
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Extract

The great number of replicas of the youthful Athena known as the Rospigliosi type proves that the original was a famous statue. The bad state of preservation as well as variations in the different copies have made it difficult to date the original; the lack of good reproductions has also caused misunderstandings and has led astray the scholars who have dealt with the type. I think it necessary, therefore, to publish here a Hermitage fragment of very good workmanship, which is untouched and unrestored by any modern master. I shall not here undertake to explain the strange attributes—stars on the aegis, sea-monster in the Rospigliosi statue; the present purpose is merely to fix the date of the original.

The fragment reproduced here for the first time in fairly good photographs (Plates VII., VIII.) was found in 1823 in the so-called Vigna del Collegio Inglese on the Palatine at Rome, and formed part of the Museo Campana until 1861. The Emperor Alexander II bought a part of this collection for the Hermitage; among these marbles the fragment of the Athena statue found its way to the then newly-arranged Museum of Ancient Sculpture. Being only a fragment it was exhibited in a rather dark corner and could not be sufficiently well studied. A rough drawing in Gerhard's Antike Denkmäler and a very small illustration in Kieseritzky's Catalogue of 1901 were the only accessible publications.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 1923 , pp. 176 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1923

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References

1 Furtwängler, , Meisterw. p. 557.Google Scholar n. 1. Théodore Reinach: see below, n. 18.

2 Hermitage, 269. Description by Kieseritzky (1901), No. 24a, by Guédéonoff, 135. Gerhard, , Ges. Akad. Abh. p. 24Google Scholar; Ant. Bildw. VIII. 2. Total height 1·15 m.

3 Dütschke, , Ant. Bildw. in Oberitalien, III. p. 152.Google Scholar Amelung, Führer, No. 77. Gerhard, , Ant. Bildw. VIII. 3.Google Scholar The photograph reproduced is Phot. Alinari No. 1265: Amelung's statement: ‘Restored are the right arm from the middle of the upper arm, the lance, pieces of neck, of breast and of aegis, the nose, the fore-part of the helmet.’

4 Mon. dell' Inst., Suppl. XXVIII. 1.

5 Matz-Duhn, , Zerstreute Bildw. I.Google Scholar, No. 621. Arndt-Amelung, , Einzelaufnahmen, 111.Google Scholar Matz-Duhn's description: ‘The head was broken off, but belongs to the figure; the nose is restored. The right arm from the middle of the upper arm is also restored, but the direction is given by the support on the right hip. Perhaps the statue held a lance, as on the sea-monster a trace of a support can be made out. New are also a part of the mantle edge on the left arm, a piece of the right leg from the middle of the calf as far as the foot; the body and the tail of the sea-monster.’

6 Gall. Lap. 29; Amelung, , Vat. I. p. 190Google Scholarsq. Pl. 22; Helbig, , Führer, I.3 No. 52.Google Scholar

7 The lines represented on this replica are singular and not given by any other replica; they cannot, therefore, be used for comparison concerning the original.

8 Beschreibung, p. 73.

9 On the Hermitage fragment the form of the right breast is obviously exaggerated.

10 Except the statues in Palazzo Rospigliosi and in Berlin.

11 Friedrichs-Wolters, , Gipsabgüsse, 1438.Google Scholar

12 Meisterwerke, p. 527.

13 Führer, No. 77; Helbig, I.3 Nos. 52 and 101; Ausonia, III. p. 98 ff.

14 Basis von Mantinea, p. 53 sq.

15 Treu, , Festschrift für Benndorf, p. 99sq.Google Scholar, Pls. II. III.; Herrmann, , Verzeichnis (1915)Google Scholar, No. 68 (with plate).

16 Preyss, , Jahrb., 1913, p. 244sq.Google Scholar

17 North, VI. 18. For the folds see especially V. 13.

18 No. 102; Kieseritzky, No. 153. Waldhauer, , Pythagoras (in Russian), p. 72sq.Google Scholar

19 Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1922, Juillet-Août, 24 sq. His theories that the Athena belonged to a group by Kephisodotos and that the Sophocles statue offers analogies cannot be adopted, as shown above.

20 Bieber, , Ath. Mitt., 1912, p. 174Google Scholar, the replica in Pal. Corsini, E.–A. 318.