CIRCA 2ND-3RD CENTURY A.D.

Though a relative latecomer to the Classical pantheon, Hygieia, the goddess of health, was the most important attendant of her father, Asclepius, and enjoyed her own cult at Titane. She was greatly revered, as evidenced by her name following immediately after that of her father in the Hippocratic oath, and before her sisters’. She is shown here with her typical attribute, the snake, which was also found entwined around her father’s staff. The boy Somnus rests against her legs: the personification of sleep, he had strong ties to healing cults. Groups of Hygieia and her father abound (cf. S. Reinach, Repertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Paris, vol. II.1, 1908, p.37, nos 5 and 6, and Vatican Museums, acc. no. 571), and this statue, along with the following lot, were probably made as a pair (see a pair of ivory panels at the National Museums Liverpool (World Museum), showing Asclepius and Telesphoros, and Hygieia and Somnus, acc. no. M10044). For similar to this statue, cf. 'Venus-Hygieia' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, no. 71.AA.338.