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Catalog
Premium Neoclassical school Diana of Ephesus after the antique
Terra…
See original version (French)
Neoclassical school Diana of Ephesus after the antique
Terra…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 70
Description
Neoclassical school
Diana of Ephesus after the antique
Terracotta
Height : 58 cm
(Restorations)
Diana of Ephesus, terracotta, Neoclassical School
H. 22.83 in.
Bibliography: related :
Robert Turcan, "Une Artémis d'Ephèse trouvée sur l'Aventin", in comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 2000, n°144-2, pp.657-669.
Related works :
Roman copy of a Hellenistic original from the 2nd century BC, Artemis of Ephesus, marble and bronze, H.115 cm, former Albani collection, Rome, Musei Capitolini, MC 1182 ;
Imperial Age, Artemis of Ephesus, statue in white and black marble, from the Giustiniani Collection, Rome, Fondazione Torlonia, inv. no. MT 483 ;
2nd century AD, Artemisia of Ephesus, alabaster and bronze, H. 130 cm, former Farnese Collection, Naples, National Archaeological Museum, n°inv.6278 ;
Diana of Ephesus or Artemisia of Ephesus, patinated plaster, H. 175 cm, formerly kept at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris , musée du Louvre, n° inv. Gy 1232.
The original statue of the mother goddess Artemis is kept in the temple at Ephesus, considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. According to Pliny the Younger, it was made by the Athenian sculptor Endoios. The image had an immense power of attraction from antiquity onwards, and was particularly popular in Rome and Lazio from the Imperial period onwards.
Traditional iconography shows the goddess wearing a two-tiered crown and a nimbus adorned with griffins. She wears a breastplate decorated with a number of figures, bordered here by a garland of fruit and pendants, and below by three rows of superimposed teats. Lions (here three) sit on each of her arms. The lower part of the statue is made up of a sheath with several registers called ependicies (here 6) decorated with sphynxes, griffins, bees and floral motifs. The bottom of the tunic flares out into tight folds above two bare feet.
Excavations in Rome during the Renaissance unearthed a number of these polymastic idols in marble or alabaster, such as those in the Museo Capitolino and the Villa Albani. Representations of the Goddess of Nature and fertility, whose ritual origin is attributed to the mythical Amazons, these Roman copies became veritable sources of inspiration for Renaissance artists such as Raphael, who depicted her in the Stanza della Segnatura and the Vatican Lodges, and the Flemish sculptor Gillis van den Vliete, who in 1568 erected a fountain of her in the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli.
Our terracotta is modelled on the magnificent example in the Museo Nazionale archeologico in Naples, whose head, hands and feet were completed in bronze by Louis Valadier after being deposited in Carlo Albacini's workshop in 1786.
Neoclassical school
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