• r2-57-10
    Fragment of "Grosse Herculanerin" type, frontal view. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Fragment of “grosse Herculanerin” Type

Date
Hellenistic or Roman
Museum
Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 3790
Museum Inventory No.
3790
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
S60.028
Material
Marble, Stone
Object Type
Sculpture
Sculpture Type
Draped Woman, Human Figure
Site
Sardis
Sector
B
Trench
BE 60
Locus
B Marble Court
B-Grid Coordinates
E26.65 / N50.50 ca *98.25
Findspot
B MC
Description

The l. leg is slightly advanced, the knee pulling the drapery forward. The himation stops just below the knees. The drapery is gathered over the l. arm and falls in rich folds at her l. side, and there is also a long vertical fold at her r. side. Across the front, arched folds delineate her stomach. The back is only summarily carved with two or three shallow, looped folds.

Typical of the “Grosse Herculanerin” type, there is a strong diagonal fold from r. hip to l. knee; another diagonal fold, the end of which can be seen on our statue, fell from the r. arm which lay on her chest, to the l. wrist.

Some drilling is used, but not extensively. The carving is fine, and allows us to see the curvature of the body. This is probably a late Hellenistic example, although the style is closely copied in Roman times, and this piece might be as late as the 2nd C. A.D.

Condition

Marble.

Preserved from above the waist to below the knees. A dowel hole is at the break of the l. arm, just where it would have projected from the drapery. Minor chipping of drapery.

Dimensions
H. 0.82; W. 0.46; D. 0.28
Comments
On the type see Bieber, Hellenistic Age, 22. Cf. also Rosenbaum, Cyrenaican Portrait Sculpture, pl. LXXIV and Hekler, Gewandstatuen, 126ff., 226. A close parallel, if slightly harsher in execution is a statue of Sabina, İnan-Rosenbaum, Portrait Sculpture Asia Minor, no. 36, pl. 19:3; cf. also their no. 214, pl. 115:2 and Faustina, no. 47, pl. 30.
See Also
Bibliography
Author
NHR