• Bertel Thorvaldsen

  1770-1844

Statue of Pompey at Palazzo Spada. Bacchus, Ariadne and a Satyr

• Production Date

  Ca. 1800

• Type of Work / Object

  Drawing

• Location

  • Not on display

• Inventory Number

  C792

• Catalogue Number

  C792

• Catalogue Level / Collection

  Thorvaldsen's Art > Thorvaldsen's Drawings (C)

Explanation

• This drawing was stolen from Thorvaldsens Museum in 1991 and the motifs on the front and back (recto and verso) are therefore described in detail below in the hope that it can be recognised when it reappears.
  
  Recto: standing naked man with a slanted sword strap across his chest, seen en face with his right arm outstretched and paludamentum (i.e. a Roman commander's cloak) on his left shoulder. The man holds a globe in his outstretched left hand and leans on a palm stump.
  The drawing is a reproduction of a Roman statue, modelled on a famous colossal statue that was then, as now, in the throne room of Palazzo Spada. The statue was found in the middle of the 16th century in a cellar near the Palazzo della Cancellaria. In Thorvaldsen's time, the statue was thought to represent Pompey, but the author, art critic and salon hostess Friederike Brun says that in 1803 the archaeologist Georg Zoëga, who was Thorvaldsen's source of knowledge about ancient art, doubted this identification. It is now regarded - with some hesitation - as a portrait statue of Domitian, albeit with a more recent head. The globe is believed to have originally carried a statuette of Victoria, the goddess of victory, as a symbol of the emperor.
  
  Verso: the wine god Bacchus with a wreath in his hair and a long thyrsos staff sits facing right on a plinth, holding his right arm outstretched protectively over a small satyr boy with animal ears. Facing left, Ariadne sits naked with drapery around her legs. She puts her right arm around Bacchus' left leg, which rests on the plinth, and holds her left hand against her hair. Bacchus and Ariadne are lost in each other's eyes, and the satyr boy seems to intrude on the tightly composed group of figures.

Additional Catalogue Information