A ROMAN BRONZE ISIS-FORTUNA

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

Details

A ROMAN BRONZE ISIS-FORTUNA
CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.-EARLY 1ST CENTURY A.D.
The goddess standing with her weight on her left leg, her right pulled back and bent at the knee, the heel raised, wearing a short-sleeved chiton over which a fringed himation is draped and secured by a knot above the right breast, its edge falling between her breasts, the heavy folds contrasting with the crinkly surface of the chiton, her right arm lowered, perhaps once holding a ship's rudder, her left shoulder pulled back, the separately-made arm now missing but likely once supporting a cornucopia, her head turned to her right, her expressive face with parted lips and wide eyes preserving traces of inlay, with a crescentic diadem in her center-parted hair, the diadem with incised curvilinear ornament, her hair tied in a chignon, with long cork-screw tresses falling on to each shoulder, her head surmounted by a modius adorned with sheaves of wheat or feathers
7½ in. (19 cm.) high

Provenance

European Art Market, 1990.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York,
17 December 1996, lot 77.

Lot Essay

The combination of the corkscrew locks, the drapery with its knot above the right breast, and the cornucopia (missing here) only came to be associated with depictions of the goddess Isis during the Roman Period. The imagery was first used for portraits of Ptolemaic queens; only late in the dynasty did the royal women come to be associated with the goddess (see S. Ashton, "Identifying the Egyptian-style Ptolemaic queens" in Walker and Higgs, Cleopatra of Egypt, p. 150). The crescentic diadem and the ship's rudder (also missing here) and often also the modius are found on Roman depictions of Fortuna. When the attributes of the two goddesses are combined, this is normally achieved by the addition of an Egyptianizing crown. Such syncretistic images usually have the himation tied in an "Isis knot" positioned between the breasts. See for example the bronze in the Museo Nazionale, Naples, no. 180m in Rausa, "Tyche/Fortuna" in LIMC. Based on the placement of the himation knot above the right breast, the present bronze must be inspired by a Ptolemaic original. The attributes of the two goddesses have been successfully integrated into a harmonious composition.

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