Ludovisi Throne
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Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
, and date it–; from the Severe style
Severe style
The severe style, or Early Classic style, was the dominant idiom of Greek sculpture in the period ca. 490 to 450 BCE. It marks the breakdown of the canonical forms of archaic art and the transition to the greatly expanded vocabulary and expression of the classical moment of the late 5th century...
it manifests, transitional between Archaic
Archaic period in Greece
The Archaic period in Greece was a period of ancient Greek history that followed the Greek Dark Ages. This period saw the rise of the polis and the founding of colonies, as well as the first inklings of classical philosophy, theatre in the form of tragedies performed during Dionysia, and written...
and Early Classical–; to the period about 460 BCE. The Ludovisi Throne has been conserved at the Museo Nazionale Romano
National Museum of Rome
The National Museum of Rome is a set of museums in Rome, Italy, split among various branches across the city...
of Palazzo Altemps, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, since its purchase for the Italian State in 1894.
The central relief is most customarily read as Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
rising from the sea, a motif known as Venus Anadyomene
Venus Anadyomene
Venus Anadyomene was one of the iconic representations of Aphrodite, made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny's Natural History, with the anecdote that the great Apelles employed Campaspe, a mistress of Alexander the Great, for his model...
(height 0.9 m, length 1.42 m). The goddess, in clinging diaphanous draperies, is helped by two attendant Horae
Horae
In Greek mythology the Horae or Hours were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time. They were originally the personifications of nature in its different seasonal aspects, but in later times they were regarded as goddessess of order in general and natural justice...
standing on the shore, who prepared to veil her with a cloth they jointly hold, which hides her from the waist down. The two reliefs on the flanking sides discreetly turn their backs to the mystery of the central subject. The right relief shows a crouching veiled woman who offers incense from a thymiaterion
Thymiaterion
A thymiaterion is a type of censer or incense burner, formerly used in the Mediterranean region for spiritual and religious purposes and especially in religious ceremonies....
held in her left hand, in an incense burner on a stand. The right slab's dimensions are height 0.87 m, length 0.69 m. The other shows a young nude girl, seated with one knee thrown over the other who plays the double flute called the aulos
Aulos
An aulos or tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology.An aulete was the musician who performed on an aulos...
; her hair is bound in a kerchief
Kerchief
A kerchief is a triangular or square piece of cloth tied around the head or around the neck for protective or decorative purposes...
. The dimensions of the left slab are height 0.84 m, length 0.68 m.
The iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
of the subject is without a parallel in Antiquity, thus the very subject of the relief is in doubt. Alternative views, since the flanking attendants stand on pebbled ground, have been offered: that the emerging figure is that of the ritual robing of a chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
goddess, probably Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
, rising from a cleft in the earth— Pandora
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts...
is similarly shown in Attic vase-paintings— or of Hera emerging reborn from the waters of Kanathos
Kanathos
In ancient Greek religion, Kanathos in the Argolid was the spring at Nauplia, where Hera annually renewed her virginity. There, Pausanias noted, was "a spring called Kanathos where, so say the Argives, Hera bathes every year and, by so doing, becomes a maiden; it is this story which is of the...
near Tiryns as Hera Parthenos.
The Throne was found in 1887, in the formerly extensive grounds of the Villa Ludovisi
Villa Ludovisi
The Villa Ludovisi was a suburban villa in Rome, built in the 17th century on the area once occupied by the Gardens of Sallust near the Porta Salaria...
, Rome, where the ancient gardens of Sallust
Gardens of Sallust
The Gardens of Sallust were Roman gardens developed by the Roman historian Sallust in the 1st century BC. The landscaped pleasure gardens occupied a large area in the northwestern sector of Rome, in what would become Region VI, between the Pincian and Quirinal hills, near the Via Salaria and later...
had been located. It was moved into the Villa Ludovisi , whence the name. The Ludovisi
Ludovisi
Ludovisi can refer to:*Ludovisi , a noble Italian family*Ludovisi, Lazio, a rione in the City of Rome* Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa and proprietor of Latium wine estate Fiorano...
are a papal family who have been patrons and collectors since the early seventeenth century. Financial difficulties forced a sale of the Ludovisi collections to the Italian State in 1894. The Villa Ludovisi grounds were broken into lots, streets put through and the district developed and unalterably changed (Hatswick 2004). Conclusions about the object's original purpose, the meaning of its reliefs and its place of facture are all debated, but in 1982 it was securely linked to a newly-studied temple at Marasa, near Locri
Locri
Locri is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. The name derives from the ancient Greek town Locris.-History:...
, an Ionic temple of Aphrodite that was rebuilt internally in 480 BCE. A reconstruction of the throne was shown to fit exactly into remaining blocks in the temple's foundations, and it has been suggested that terracotta votive plaques, or pinakes, of cults at Lokri Epizefiri, are the only stylistic parallel to the Throne (Terra 1997).
The only other representations of the female nude at this period (c. 460) are on Attic pottery. Criticisms of anomalies in anatomy and detail and doubts of the Ludovisi Throne's authenticity were summed up by Jerome Eisenberg in a 1996 article in Minerva, which asserted, in part, that the hetaira
Hetaira
Hetaira is a genus of bush cricket in family Tettigoniidae subfamily Phaneropterinae....
flute-player was derived from a late-sixth-century BCE psykter by Euphronius, published in 1857 in the Hermitage from the Campana collection. Eisenberg noted that the much-later Roman representation of Penelope mourning for Ulysses is the only iconological type in classical sculpture which depicts a woman with legs crossed: the Penelope is fully clothed.
The Ludovisi Throne's less accomplished twin, the Boston Throne
Boston Throne
The Boston Throne is an unusual marble sculpture, similar to the Ludovisi Throne. It probably dates from classical antiquity, and first appeared in modern times in 1894, shortly after the Ludovisi Throne was found and sold at auction...
in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
, which appeared in 1894, shortly after the Ludovisi auction and was bought by the connoisseur Edward Perry Warren
Edward Perry Warren
Edward Perry Warren , known as Ned Warren, was an American art collector and the author of works proposing an idealized view of homosexual relationships.-Biography:...
, who donated it to Boston, is widely doubted. A conference at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 1996, compared the two objects. Currently it is not on exhibition at Boston. If it is not a forgery of c. 1894, it may be a Roman sculpture designed to complete the Greek one in a setting in the gardens of Sallust. Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
, once director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, recollects being told by an art dealer in Italy that the twin throne in Boston was the work of the great faker Alcide Dossena.