A ROMAN BRONZE MARS ULTOR

CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Details

A ROMAN BRONZE MARS ULTOR
CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.
The god standing with the left leg advanced, wearing sandals, greaves, a cuirass and a helmet high on his head, a mantle draped over his arms, his right arm raised, once holding a spear, his left hand lowered, perhaps once holding the rim of a shield, the greaves ornamented with winged thunderbolts in relief, the cuirass with confronting sphinxes above a palmette and tendrils, a diminutive gorgoneion above, the helmet surmounted by a now-headless winged sphinx, the god's eyes inlaid in silver
6 1/8 in. (15.6 cm.) high

Provenance

Private Collection, Munich.
Private Collection, Boston.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1985 (Art of the Ancient World, vol. IV, no. 283; Gods and Mortals, no. 69).

Literature

C.C. Vermeule, "Roman Provincial Coins II: The Statues in the Temples and Shrines - Personified Geography, Powerful Gods and Young Heroes," The Celator, vol. 16, no. 10, October 2002, fig. 7.

Lot Essay

The Morven bronze is a version of the cult-statue of Mars Ultor, best known from a late 1st century A.D. marble in the Capitoline Museum, Rome (no. 24a in Simon, "Ares/Mars" in LIMC). For a related example in bronze from the Rheinland, now in the British Museum, see no. 37 in Simon, op. cit.

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