figure
- Museum number
- 1805,0703.284
- Description
-
Terracotta figure of Athena seated on a throne.
- Production date
- 50-100
- Dimensions
-
Height: 91.44 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- According to Nollekens, he had purchased this group of terracottas (1805,0703.34; 35; 36; 281.a;282;283.a;284;285; and 286) "from the labourers who were employed in digging gravel at Porta Latina; they were mostly discovered at the bottom of a dry well", the year said to be 1767 (H.B. Walters, Catalogue of terracottas in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, London 1903, XIII.
G. Colonna (in the article Acqua Acetosa Laurentina, l'ager Romanus antiquus e i santuari del I miglio, Scienze dell'antichità. Storia, archeologia, antropologia 5 (1991): 224-231) attributes these sculptures to an extra-urban, late Republican sanctuary to Minerva and the Muses, the aedes Minervae of Regio I of Rome, mentioned in the Regionary Catalogues, which he thinks is to be located near Porta Latina. The sculptures would then not have been decorative features of an extra-urban villa, but part of a votive deposit of the sanctuary, which would explain their discovery in a well. Colonna does not take into account that many so-called Campana plaques (e.g. 1805,0703.301, where see comments) were also discovered with these sculptures, which are hard to link to a late-Republcian sanctuary.
Also published in T.Combe, A Description of Ancient Terracottas in the British Museum, with Engravings. London 1810; and W. Deonna, Les statues de terre cuite dans l'antiquite. Sicile, Grande Grece, Etrurie et Rome. Paris 1908.
- Location
- On display (G70/dc5)
- Exhibition history
-
3 Mar - 5 Sept 2010, Musei Capitolini, Rome, 'Age of Conquest'
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.284