A ROMAN BIGIO MORATO FIGURE OF A GOD

CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Details

A ROMAN BIGIO MORATO FIGURE OF A GOD
Circa 2nd Century A.D.
Probably depicting Mars, the god standing with his weight on his left leg, his right leg extending out on an angle with the now-missing foot originally flat on the ground, the youthful, muscular torso well-modeled, the right arm originally angled down, the left originally lowered and bent at the elbow, wearing a baldric diagonally across the chest over the right shoulder, a strut preserved along the ribs on the proper left side either to support the now-missing arm or the weapon suspended by the baldric, his mantle draped over perhaps a stump serving as the support
65 in. (165.1 cm) high

Lot Essay

The type is based on the figure of Ares usually attributed to the sculptor Alkamenes, which originally stood in his temple in the Athenian Agora. It is only known from Roman copies, the best of which is the "Ares Borghese" now in the Louvre, fig. 104 in Bieber, Ancient Copies. The prototype was favored during the Imperial period for depictions of the emperor, sometimes as a group with the empress appearing as the god's consort Venus.

Bigio morato is a fine-grained gray marble, much favored during the 2nd century A.D., especially during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, whose villa at Tivoli has yielded a number of fine sculptures. For a recent discussion of this rare material see Cioffarelli, p. 67 in Anderson and Nista, eds., Radiance in Stone, Sculptures in Colored Marble from the Museo Nazionale Romano.

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