Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 193
Small Herculaneum Woman. Dresden

Early Imperial statue of a draped woman which copies a statue made around 300 BC. The statue is famous because it was among the first finds from Herculaneum and because it represents a commonly used statue type for portrait statues of woman in the Roman period

Marble
Statue
1.81 m

From Herculaneum. Found between 1709 (when D’Elboeuf bought land in Resina) and 1712 with two other female statues, another in the “Small Herculaneum” type and one in the “Large Herculaneum” type (cf. C 192), possibly in the theater. The statue was acquired in 1736, along with the other two statues, by King August III of Poland from the estate of Prince Eugen in Vienna, cousin and patron of D’Elboeuf. August put them on display at the Albertinum in Dresden. In 1945 the statue was taken to St. Petersburg but returned to Dresden in 1958
Germany, Dresden, Albertinum und Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Skulpturensammlung, 327
Early Imperial Roman statue based on an original dated ca. 300 BC

Preservation:
The head is heavily weathered as the extant unevenness on the face has been repaired with plaster. The small nose, however, is unbroken. Some folds as well as the section of drapery which hangs freely from the left arm, are missing. There are many breaks. The right hand and the fingers of the left hand as well as other small details are restored with plaster casts taken from Dresden 328, the other “Small Herculaneum” type statue found by D’Elboeuf.

Description:
The statue depicts a woman who is in the act of placing a corner of her mantle over her left shoulder. This heavy mantle covers most of the body, but not the head. A thinner garment is visible primarily below the bottom hem of the mantle but also near the neckline. On its feet are sandals. The lowered right upper arm begins to cross the body so that right elbow is over the stomach area. The raised right forearm reaches all the way across the body to the left shoulder. The right hand rests near the left shoulder. The left arm rests by the left side. Both hands, respectively at the left shoulder and the left thigh, hold pieces of the mantle. The weight of the statue rests on the straight left leg. The left foot is entirely concealed by the drapery. The statue is marked by several distinct fold patterns. The upper border of the mantle, after passing through the right hand, spills down alongside the left arm, a diagonal fold runs from the right shoulder to left elbow and three diagonal folds, originating at the left hip, reach above the right knee, to the right knee, and below the right knee. The abdominal area is left particularly exposed between the high crossing of the right arm and the first diagonal fold (left hip to above the right knee); this unbroken area is covered by semi-circular fold patterns. The head looks forward. The hair is rendered in a “melon” hairstyle. The face has a small oval shape. The eyebrows are long and slope downwards at their outer corners. The nose is straight and narrow. The eyes are deeply set. The mouth is small. The lips are parted and the lower lip protrudes. The chin is round and projects.

Discussion:
This statue from Herculaneum is known as the “Small Herculaneum Woman” because it is about 20 cm smaller than the “Large Herculaneum Woman” (cat.no.C 192), the similarly draped and coiffed female statue with which it was found. The “Small Herculaneum Woman” gives its name to a type, which appears to derive from a statue of the early Hellenistic period and which was used repeatedly for the body portion of portrait statues of Roman women. The statue was found during treasure hunt excavations undertaken secretly by an Austrian general D’Elboeuf between 1709-1712. It is thought to have come from a well that reached into the scaena frons of the ancient Theater. D’Elboeuf sent the statue, a headless copy of the same type (Dresden 328), and the statue of the Large Herculaneum Woman, (see cat.no.C 192) to his cousin, Prince Eugen of Savoy in Vienna. These statues precipitated European interest in Herculaneum. The Small Herculaneum woman is frequently considered a pendant to the Large Herculaneum woman and both are sometimes said to depend on originals created contemporaneously in the same workshop. Moreover, because some copies hold stalks of grain and poppies and because of the size differential between the statues, scholars interpreted them to be based on statues, created ca. 300 BC, of Demeter, the mother, and Kore, her daughter. Because these statues were so often copied, scholars thought that they had to have been made by a famous and known artist. Thus, they were ascribed to Lysippos or Praxiteles or the school of Praxiteles. The statues popularity in the Roman period for portrait statues was assigned to the potentially applicable mother-daughter meaning of the original statues as well as to the fame of the artist. This theory is now mainly rejected. The statue types do not seem designed to carry attributes; the originals do not seem to have been created at the same moment by the same workshop; and they are infrequently paired, and when they are, it is certainly not in a one to one relationship. The original models are now thought to have represented a mortal woman, a priestess, heroine, or poetess. The statue and the type differ from the “Large Herculaneum” statue and type in a few significant ways. The Small Herculaneum statue is a smaller size and is slighter in build. Also whereas the “Large Herculaneum” statue with its careful contrapposto shows the portrayed in a dignified, relaxed, and solid position, the “Small Herculaneum” statue features a tense stance in which the bent arm is over the bent leg. Moreover, the position of the “Small Herculaneum” statue’s right arm is always at work; it does not, like that of the “Large Herculaneum” statue held by a sling of drapery, relax. Finally, the left leg is in front of the right, the feet are narrowly spaced, the left foot does not appear, and the hip does not project. Thus, the statue type seems to stand less comfortably and less statically than the “Large Herculaneum” type. Because of these differences, the “Small Herculaneum” type seems to have been less well suited for images of matrons and more appropriate for statues of girls. The statue from Herculaneum has an idealizing head with a melon hairstyle that is in keeping with a late fourth century date. It is, moreover, not the only instance of this hairstyle and classicising physiognomy combined with this body type. Yet it remains to be decisively proven that this was the original head type of the statue. As in the case of it companion, the “Large Woman”, the subject of the Small Herculaneum statue is unknown. Was it a portrait statue of a contemporary woman, a statue of a mortal figure from myth, or of a divinity? In the early Imperial period in Italy, it would have been unusual to depict a contemporary woman without a specific physiognomy and with an old-fashioned hairstyle. Julia Lenaghan

Bibliography:
M. Bieber, "The Copies of the Herculaneum Women" (PAPS 106 1962) 11-134 discusses popularity of the type which she believes derives from an early Hellenistic statue representing Kore or Persephone
I. Linfert-Reich, Musen und Dichterinnenfiguren des vierten und frühen dritten Jahrhunderts (Cologne 1971) 53-57 full discussion of the Large and Small Herculaneum types, rejects the idea that the original models were made as pendants, thinks the original was a poetess or simply a famous woman
H-J. Kruse, Römische wiebliche Gewandstatuen des zweiten Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Göttingen 1975) 68-69 discussion of the type and subsequent use
K. Zimmerman, ed., Die Dresdener Antiken und Winckelmann (Berlin 1977) 33-35 pl.36 history, also upholds theory that the type originally represented Kore and was created ca.300 by the school of Praxiteles
B. S. Ridgway, Roman Copies of Greek Sculpture (Ann Arbor 1984) 101 pl.138 succinct summary of evidence concerning the type, places the original slightly before that of the Large Herculaneum woman
B. S. Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. 331-200 BC (Bristol 1990) 92-93 pl.56a-b summary of research, believes the early Hellenistic original represented a a mortal woman
, Die Antike in Albertinum (Mainz 1993) 31 no.14 catalogue entry with glossy color photograph
L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo (Milan 1993) 133-134 no.292 considers the original to have been a work of the school of Praxiteles (ca.330-310 BC) and to have possibly represented a poetess.
C. Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity (Cambridge 1995) 23-25 excavation history
J. Trimble, The Large and Small Herculaneum Types (University of Michigan 1999) dissertation