EARLY AUGUSTAN PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Originating from an archaistic style Kitharodic relief, this depiction of Leto walking to the right and lifting her mantle is an exact parallel to a more complete fragment in the British Museum, no. 775 in A.H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, vol. I. The scene portrayed Leto and her two children, Artemis and Apollo, walking towards Nike, who pours a libation into Apollo’s patera. The tall column behind Leto would have supported a votive tripod. The scene is preserved on a handful of examples, the most complete of which is in the Villa Albani, Rome, no. 351 in E. Simon, “Apollon/Apollo,” LIMC, vol. II.

This fragment once formed part of the collection of James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855). The Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier was a Swiss-French banker who also served as Chamberlin to King Frederick William III of Prussia. The Comte’s collection, primarily comprised of ancient sculpture and Old Master paintings, was housed at his home, the Hôtel de Pourtalès, in Paris. Among the most notable works of art in the collection were a Roman Marble Head of Apollo, once owned by Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, and now in the British Museum, and Portrait of a Young Man with a Book by Bronzino, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.