Statue - Female figure leaning on a column

Statue - Female figure leaning on a column

Class and production: sculpture/ statues

Subject: Female figure leaning on a column

Cultural context: Greek workshop/ Ionian area

Date: 2nd century A.D.

Description

The statue reproduces Praxiteles’s iconographic schema of a nude or semi-nude figure resting on a column. At first this type was conceived to represent female figure as Aphrodite (the so called "Aphrodite au pilier"), Nymphs, Muses. Then it was also used to portray Hermapdhrodite, Dionysus, Asclepius. In between various hypothesis, this figure was also identified with young Asclepius, even though it’s not sure. The statue was made during the Roman Age by an Ionian artist which was ispired by a model that originated in Eastern Greek around the half of the 4th century B.C. We can find a very similar statuary type in Coo, Rhodi and Samo.

Materials and techniques: white marble, medium-coarse grained/ sculpture

Dimensions: height 56 cm

Provenance: Mantova Benavides Collection, Padua; Vallisneri Collection, Padua

University of Padua, Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art

Cat. Number: MB136

Exhibitions

  • Alle radici dell'Euro, Padova, Monte di Pietà, 2001-2002
  • Portable Classic. Ancient Greece to Modern Europe, Venezia, Cà Corner della Regina, 2015

Bibliography

  • Trojani Maria, La statuetta N.49 e il tipo classico in appoggio al pilastrino, in Marco Mantova Benavides il suo museo e la cultura padovana del Cinquecento, Atti della giornata di studio nel IV centenario della morte 1582-1982, Padova 12 novembre 1983, a cura di Irene Favaretto, Padova, Accademia Patavina, 1984, pp. 36-57.
  • De Paoli Marcella, 17.Statuetta in appoggio al pilastrino, in Un Museo di Antichità nella Padova del Cinquecento. La raccolta di Marco Mantova Benavides all'Università di Padova, a cura di Irene Favaretto, Alessandra Menegazzi, Roma, Giorgio Bretschneider, 2013, pp. 40-41.
  • Gallo Daniela, Female figure leaning on a column, in Portable Classic. Ancient Greece to Modern Europe, Milano, Progetto Prada Arte, 2015, p. 241, scheda PC48.