CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.-EARLY 1ST CENTURY A.D.

Hygeia, the goddess of health, is depicted standing with her weight on her left leg, with her right bent back at the knee. She wears a thick mantle diagonally over her left shoulder, exposing her right breast, with a fringed edge falling below her left arm. The goddess once held a snake in her left hand, its tapering body preserved along her left side. Her right arm was originally crossing her body, as evinced by the support strut above her hip. Her hand was perhaps holding a bowl in order to feed the serpent.
The type is exactly paralleled by a statue of Hygeia excavated near the so-called Auditorium within the Gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill, now in the Centrale Montemartini Museum, Rome (see pl. 55.21, in S. Jones, A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome: The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori).