CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

Figures of youthful satyrs leaning on tree trunks or columnar supports, standing in a relaxed pose with the left leg crossing the right (or sometimes in reverse) were immensely popular with the Romans for adornment of their villas and gardens. The most popular type, known from about twenty surviving examples, shows the satyr nude but for a nebris worn diagonally over his right shoulder, leaving the torso largely exposed. Both arms are bent at the elbow, with the hands holding an aulos raised to his lips (see the example in the Louvre, fig. 86 in M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age). While historians have sought to assign the type to a master sculptor such as Praxiteles or Lysippos, more recent scholarship places the Greek original to the end of the fourth century without an attribution (see B.S. Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I, p. 101, n. 11). The present example shares the pose with this popular type but differs in terms of the treatment of the nebris, which here is tied over the left shoulder, concealing most of his torso, and with the animal’s head positioned over the satyr’s hip. These specific attributes are known from at least one other example now in the Vatican (see G. Spinola, Il Museo Pio-Clementino, vol. 2, no. 14). On the present example, the satyr’s pedum hangs from the tree trunk support.