Rome.
Carrara marble.
13-9 BCE.
Rome, Ara Pacis.
H 31 1/2 in., W 26 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 1313.
Cast Location: Concert Hall Lobby

Construction of the Ara Pacis Augustae was approved by the Roman Senate to honor the peace and prosperity enjoyed during the Pax Romana (Roman peace) of the Emperor Augustus. The abundance of his reign is represented on the lower panels of the altar's enclosure walls by reliefs of acanthus leaves, tendrils, birds, small animals, lizards, and insects. The upper panels contain figural scenes relating to peace, plenty, good government, and the legendary history of the Roman people. The Ara Pacis was originally erected alongside the Via Flaminia in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars). During the 1930s, Mussolini’s archaeologists excavated and restored the altar, moving it to its present location within a protective building near the Tiber River. A new building for the altar and its enclosure designed by Richard Meier opened in 2006. The workshop that produced this plaster during the 1890s affixed an oval label on the right side of the cast that reads: “M. GHERARDI, Formatore. Grande Assortimento di Modello Per disegno. ROMA 87 via sestina 87.”
~Jennifer Seamster


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See David Castriota, The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art (Princeton, 1995); Diane Conlin, The Artists of the Ara Pacis: The Process of Hellenization in Roman Relief Sculpture (Chapel Hill, 1997); Erika Simon, Ara Pacis Augustae (Greenwich, CT, n.d.). Figure. Figure. Label found on the back of no. 27.]]> Pentelic marble.
1st century BCE.
London British Museum.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 998 (both).
Cast Location: Robinson B359 hallway

These two reliefs formed part of the decoration of a circular altar produced during the reign of Augustus (31 BCE - 14 CE), one of several such altars commissioned to commemorate his military victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. The reliefs were acquired in Corinth during the nineteenth century by a gentleman named Notarà. He used the reliefs as a puteal or wellhead, which he installed in his garden. There it was regularly seen by foreign visitors, including the Englishman Edward Dodwell in 1805. He commissioned an Italian named Simone Pomardi to sketch the puteal. Then a cast was made of it and sent to Athens, where another drawing was produced in 1811 by Baron von Stackelberg. Owing to the growing popularity of the "Corinth Puteal," Notarà took it to Zante (Zakynthos), an island noted for art dealing, where he sold it to Frederick North, the fifth Earl of Guilford, who took it to England. There the Corinth Puteal came to be called the Guilford Puteal. After North died in 1827, the puteal came into the possession of Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, who kept it at his home, Brenton Hall, near Leeds in northern England. After his death in 1848, the puteal disappeared. Beaumont’s house was sold and later demolished, and it was thought for many years that the Guilford Puteal had been destroyed. But at some point it and another ancient altar were sold to the West Riding County Council, which later established the Leeds College of Education, and the two altars were placed in a garden on campus, where they were rediscovered in 1992 by Susan Walker, who was then a curator at the British Museum. The Guilford Puteal was acquired in 2002 by the British Museum for approximately £300,000 ($544,032.38). Its identification and date were secured by the recent discovery of another altar just like it at Nikopolis, close to Actium, where Augustus (then known as Octavian) had defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE. Around the altar ten mythological figures are carved in low relief, as if in two converging processions. Apollo leads the first procession. He plays his lyre and is followed closely by his sister Artemis, bow in hand and stag at her side, and then by their mother Leto. Then comes Hermes escorting three women with bowed heads, perhaps nymphs or the Graces. The other procession is led by Athena, who wears an elaborate breastplate and carries a helmet and a weapon. Behind her, Herakles leads another woman, probably Hera or Aphrodite.]]> Pentelic marble.
1st century BCE.
London British Museum.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 998 (both).
Relief of Hermes
H 18 ¾ in., W 12 in.
Cast Location: Robinson B359 hallway

Messenger to the gods, Hermes, or Mercury, ensured the safety of travelers and favored merchants as well as thieves. In this relief, Hermes is portrayed as a heavily muscled, nude male, standing in profile. He wears winged sandals as well as a shawl around his waist, but he does not carry a caduceus.These two reliefs formed part of the decoration of a circular altar produced during the reign of Augustus (31 BCE - 14 CE), one of several such altars commissioned to commemorate his military victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. The reliefs were acquired in Corinth during the nineteenth century by a gentleman named Notarà. He used the reliefs as a puteal or wellhead, which he installed in his garden. There it was regularly seen by foreign visitors, including the Englishman Edward Dodwell in 1805. He commissioned an Italian named Simone Pomardi to sketch the puteal. Then a cast was made of it and sent to Athens, where another drawing was produced in 1811 by Baron von Stackelberg. Owing to the growing popularity of the "Corinth Puteal," Notarà took it to Zante (Zakynthos), an island noted for art dealing, where he sold it to Frederick North, the fifth Earl of Guilford, who took it to England. There the Corinth Puteal came to be called the Guilford Puteal. After North died in 1827, the puteal came into the possession of Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, who kept it at his home, Brenton Hall, near Leeds in northern England. After his death in 1848, the puteal disappeared. Beaumont’s house was sold and later demolished, and it was thought for many years that the Guilford Puteal had been destroyed. But at some point it and another ancient altar were sold to the West Riding County Council, which later established the Leeds College of Education, and the two altars were placed in a garden on campus, where they were rediscovered in 1992 by Susan Walker, who was then a curator at the British Museum. The Guilford Puteal was acquired in 2002 by the British Museum for approximately £300,000 ($544,032.38). Its identification and date were secured by the recent discovery of another altar just like it at Nikopolis, close to Actium, where Augustus (then known as Octavian) had defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE. Around the altar ten mythological figures are carved in low relief, as if in two converging processions. Apollo leads the first procession. He plays his lyre and is followed closely by his sister Artemis, bow in hand and stag at her side, and then by their mother Leto. Then comes Hermes escorting three women with bowed heads, perhaps nymphs or the Graces. The other procession is led by Athena, who wears an elaborate breastplate and carries a helmet and a weapon. Behind her, Herakles leads another woman, probably Hera or Aphrodite.


]]> Marble.
Probably first century CE.
Dresden, Albertinum, no. ZV 475.
H with base 12 in.
Not in Metropolitan cast catalogue.
Long-term loan.
Cast Location: Robinson B359 hallway

This weathered head represents an old woman with her mouth open in laughter, revealing bad teeth. Over her head she wears a kerchief and an ivy wreath, identifying her as one of the drunken followers of Dionysos. Images of old, drunken, derelict, and generally unattractive individuals belong to a genre developed during the Hellenistic period that retained its appeal during Roman times. The figure to which this head once belonged was probably installed as a garden sculpture.


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See Rune Frederiksen and R.R.R. Smith, The Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum: Catalogue of Plaster Casts of Greek and Roman Sculpture (Oxford, 2011), 192; R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture (London, 1991), 138 and fig. 176; Guy Dickins, Hellenistic Art (Oxford, 1920), p. 29, no. 22. Figure. 24.]]> From Rome, found in the moat of the Castel Sant' Angelo.
First noted in 1628.
Marble.
3rd century BCE or later.
Munich, Glyptothek.
H 84 in.
2-piece
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 830.
Long-term loan.
Cast Location: Breezeway between Mason and College Halls

Fauns or satyrs, humans with tails who lived in the wilds, were followers of Dionysos/Bacchus. They were known in Classical times for wild drinking and for uncontrolled carousing. This drunken faun has dropped his pan-pipes behind the rock on which he lies sleeping, his limbs splayed out on a panther-skin with gaping jaws. The faun’s brow is knitted and his mouth is slightly open, suggesting that his sleep is not very comfortable. The marble faun was dug up in Rome in the 1620s, during the fortification of the Castel Sant’Angelo (built originally as a Mausoleum for the Emperor Hadrian, and decorated with statues). Pope Urban VIII’s family, the Barberini, owned the statue. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Barberini Faun became one of the most famous antique statues in Rome. Perhaps the fact that it was poorly preserved made it even more tantalizing for artists and connoisseurs. A number of different artists adjusted the posture, and restored and re-restored its missing parts - a portion of the right leg, the left leg, the left arm, the fingers of the right hand, and the base. The fig-leaf was added during the 1600s. During the French occupation of Italy, the Barberini family were forced to sell this statue. Despite strenuous resistance to its export, the statue was sold to Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1814. It arrived in Munich in 1820, and a special room was built for it in the Glyptothek (Sculpture-Gallery).


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See Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (New Haven, 1981), 202-205. Figure.]]> From Athens, the Theater of Dionysos, 1862.
Pentelic marble.
First century BCE.
Athens, National Archaeological Museum no. 259.
H 44 in., W 25 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 881.
Long-term loan.
Cast Location:  SUB I top floor.  Additional copies of the cast can be found outside Robinson B, Harris Theatre, and in the Performing Arts Bldg.

This is thought to be one of three dancers carved in relief on marble slabs that were probably set up to form a triangular base for a three-legged bronze tripod-stand holding a bronze cauldron. The style is known as neo-Attic. The dancer wears a chiton and himation, and probably represents a nymph or one of the Horai (chorus). During the 800-year lifespan of the Theater of Dionysos, thousands of tripod-monuments were erected to honor the winners of Athenian dramatic contests. Concrete casts taken from this plaster cast can be seen in the Performing Arts Building, outside Harris Theater, and outside the Prince William Campus. The casts were made by sculptor Nick Xhiku. He poured a carefully mixed solution of cement, sand, marble chips (for color), and water into a rubber mold that he had made of the original cast, pouring slowly and inserting steel reinforcement rods. Unlike the plaster cast, the concrete casts can be installed outdoors. For the full process, see no. 52 below. ~Ellen McV. Layman]]> Bibliography

See S. Karouzou, National Archaeological Museum Collection of Sculpture: A Catalogue (Athens, 1968, rpt 1974), 191-192; Katerina Romiopoulou, `Ellenoromaika Glypta tou Ethnikou Archaiologikou Mouseiou (Athens, 1997), 23-24, no. 11. Fig. 22. Fig. Cast no. 22 before cleaning. Fig. Latex mold of no. 22. Fig. Installation of new cast of no. 22 outside Harris Theater. Fig. New cast of no. 22.]]> Marble.
Ca. 180-156 BCE.
Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
H 62 in., W 43 in., D 18 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 798.
Long-term loan.
Cast Location:Johnson Ctr 2nd floor

The frieze to which this large statue of Apollo belongs consists of more than one hundred figures of Greek gods (led by Zeus) fiercely battling the giants. The most extensive representation of this epic conflict ever attempted by Greek artists, the frieze is thought to have served as a mythological parallel for the Pergamene victories over the Gauls or Galatians. The decorated altar was created during the reign of the Attalid king Eumenes II between 165 and 156 BCE and dedicated to Zeus and Athena. The names of the participants are helpfully inscribed on this encyclopedic monument. Apollo is defeating the giant Erysicthon. The torso is beautifully muscled, and the drapery folds help to express the drama of battle. German excavations directed by Karl Humann in 1879 and 1880 on the ancient acropolis at Pergamon in Turkey uncovered the magnificently carved frieze surrounding a high podium, and an Ionic colonnade at the top of the podium, within which was an altar dedicated to Zeus. The entire monument is in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, which was built to house them.
~Lisa Hargrove


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See Renee Dreyfus and Ellen Schraudolph, editors, Pergamon: The Telephos Frieze from the Great Altar, vol. 2 (San Francisco, 1997); J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (New York, 1986); Evamaria Schmidt, The Great Altar of Pergamon (Leipzig, 1962). Fig. 21.]]>
This head probably comes from a statue. The face is youthful and effeminate, and was originally identified as that of a woman. The head wears no wreath of vine leaves, which became the distinguishing feature of Dionysos in the later Hellenistic period. The long curly lock behind each ear probably extended to the shoulder. Dionysos came to the Greek pantheon from Phrygia. He injected a rash spirit of wine-drinking and intense mental frenzy, often manifested orgiastically. During the Archaic period of the sixth century BCE, he appears as a mature bearded god, but he grows younger during the fifth century, when he is portrayed as a youth, and he becomes more and more fleshy, sensual, and effeminate during the fourth century BCE and thereafter. Festivals were held in honor of Dionysos throughout Greece. In Athens, however, authorities toned down much of the festival's original madness. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquired the marble head in 1896 as part of a concerted effort to gather a collection of classical sculptures. The head was reported to have been found near the choragic Monument of Lysikrates (334 BCE) in what is now the Plaka region of Athens.
~Bill Pierce


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See Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Mass., 1985); L. D. Caskey, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Cambridge, Mass., 1925); Mary B. Comstock and Cornelius C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone: The Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston, 1976); W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods (Boston, rpt. 1954). Fig. 20.]]> Purchased in Rome in 1809, and apparently found in Ostia in 1792.
Parian marble.
Style of the 4th century BCE.
Munich, Glyptothek
H with base 22 1/2 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 767.
Long-term loan.
Cast Location: Robinson B359 Hallway

The young woman has an oval face, smooth and unmarked forehead and face, and somewhat hooded eyes. The hair is pulled back in parallel waves to the base of the head, in the manner of the Herculaneum Women in Dresden. Like them, she may be an idealized portrait. Otherwise, her untroubled features might suggest that she is a Muse or a goddess. The nose, chin, and neck are restored in the cast, making the head appear to be undamaged.



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See Adolf Furtwängler, Beschreibung der Glyptothek König Ludwig's I. zu München (Munich, 1910), 191-194, no. 210. Fig. 19.]]> Full statue found on the island of Andros.
Marble.
Style of the 4th century BCE.
Athens, National Archaeological Museum.
H without base 13 1/2 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 707.
Cast Location: Krasnow Bldg

In the full statue, Hermes wears a cloak slung over his left shoulder, and leans against a tree trunk with a snake coiled around it. The statue was identified as Hermes because of the snake: it is one of the two that would normally coil around his wand (caduceus). This sculpture was frequently reproduced in the Greco-Roman world.

~Ashley Simpson


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Fig. 18.]]>