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Lot Essay
As the goddesses of the arts and sciences, the nine Muses inspired the knowledge necessary for excellence in such fields as poetry, history, music, drama and astronomy. In The Theogony, Hesiod relates that the Muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, who once went to Mount Olympus where their singing stirred their father to set out provinces and declare norms for immortals, as if the gift of governance and equanimity were passed down through their song. Likewise, in the Homeric Hymn to the Muses and Apollo, the anonymous poet writes, “Happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from his lips.”
As B.S. Ridgeway notes (pp. 254-255 in Hellenistic Sculpture I), depictions of the Muses in the round were comparatively uncommon in Greek art and were commissioned primarily for private dedications rather than for public display. More frequently, the Muses appear on reliefs with other divinities as subsidiary figures (see the Mantineia Base, figs. 492-493 in A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture). However, by the Roman era, statues of Muses were popular embellishments to theaters, libraries and baths. A group of Muses ornamented Pompey’s theater in Rome and important cycles are known from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (Ridgeway, op. cit.). Similarly, the Romans produced a series of sarcophagi in which the deceased is shown as a man of intellect in the company of the Muses (see the sarcophagus in San Simeon, no. 263 in G. Koch and H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage).
The present figure depicts a youthful Muse leaning on an altar to her right and holding a fragmentary kithara, an instrument associated with both Terpsichore and Erato, the Muses of dance and lyric poetry, respectively. For a Muse in the Getty Villa, see no. 307a in L. Faedo, “Mousa, Mousai,” LIMC, vol. VII. The scale of the present figure and that of the Getty Muse indicates that they were likely designed for placement in a niche. For a similar example of Erato, but reversed, see the sarcophagus of Praecilia Severiana in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (pp. 104-111 in R. Cohon, “A Muse Sarcophagus in Its Context,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1992, vol. 1). For a depiction of Terpsichore and Erato on a sarcophagus standing and holding a kithara, see the example in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, pl. 9b in M. Wegner, Die Musensarkophage.
As B.S. Ridgeway notes (pp. 254-255 in Hellenistic Sculpture I), depictions of the Muses in the round were comparatively uncommon in Greek art and were commissioned primarily for private dedications rather than for public display. More frequently, the Muses appear on reliefs with other divinities as subsidiary figures (see the Mantineia Base, figs. 492-493 in A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture). However, by the Roman era, statues of Muses were popular embellishments to theaters, libraries and baths. A group of Muses ornamented Pompey’s theater in Rome and important cycles are known from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (Ridgeway, op. cit.). Similarly, the Romans produced a series of sarcophagi in which the deceased is shown as a man of intellect in the company of the Muses (see the sarcophagus in San Simeon, no. 263 in G. Koch and H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage).
The present figure depicts a youthful Muse leaning on an altar to her right and holding a fragmentary kithara, an instrument associated with both Terpsichore and Erato, the Muses of dance and lyric poetry, respectively. For a Muse in the Getty Villa, see no. 307a in L. Faedo, “Mousa, Mousai,” LIMC, vol. VII. The scale of the present figure and that of the Getty Muse indicates that they were likely designed for placement in a niche. For a similar example of Erato, but reversed, see the sarcophagus of Praecilia Severiana in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (pp. 104-111 in R. Cohon, “A Muse Sarcophagus in Its Context,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1992, vol. 1). For a depiction of Terpsichore and Erato on a sarcophagus standing and holding a kithara, see the example in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, pl. 9b in M. Wegner, Die Musensarkophage.