Marble Statue of the Goddess Isis

Culture: Roman

Period: 2nd-3rd century A.D.

Material: Marble

Dimensions: 50 cm high

Price: 14 000 Euro

Ref: 3601

Provenance: From an old Roman private collection. Thence in the gallery Marianne Maspero in Paris. From there acquired on 28 December 1981. With a copy of the invoice.

Condition: Unrestored, the separately worked out head is missing.

Description: Beautifully preserved fragment of a marble statue from the Roman cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Depicted is the goddess herself with a flower sash which runs over her left shoulder and under her right arm. Isis wears a fitted, draped robe that covers the shoulders and is knotted under the breast. The rolled, wide hem of the garment falls vertically down the middle of the body. The goddess stands with her weight on the left leg, the right one is slightly bent forward. The left arm hangs down along the body, in the hand holding a situla. The right, today missing arm possibly once held a sistrum or an alabaster vessel. The back with worked out pleats is flattened, which indicates that the statue stood in a niche in a temple or on a grave monument. The Isis cult already spread in the 1st century B.C. to Rome, as the dictator Sulla around 80 B.C. erected an Isis temple on the Capitoline Hill . Some Roman emperors, such as Augustus and Tiberius tried to fight against the cult, others such as Hadrian supported it. With the expansion of Christianity, the systematic destruction of Isis temples finally began around the year 400 A.D. See for the depiction of Isis’ gown the statue in the Brooklyn Museum with the Accession Number 74.220. For the depiction with a flower garland see the statuette in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the Accession Number 89.2.2014. Mounted.