Getty Museum

Statue of a Muse

Date

about A.D. 200

Medium

Marble with polychromy

Culture

Roman

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

This young woman wears a long robe, and her lower body is wrapped in a mantle with one end rolled and drawn up over her shoulder. She represents a Muse, one of the goddesses of learning and the arts. The statue was part of a group of Muses and other deities that probably decorated a building devoted to the cult of the Roman emperor. Traces of paint on the hair, eyes, and lips show that the statue was originally brightly painted. The statue's roughly finished back indicates that it probably stood in a niche. Which of the nine Muses does this statue represent? In Roman art, the individual Muses were originally identified by the attributes they held. In this case, however, the arms of the statue and any attributes she held are gone. Yet, because Roman sculptors commonly produced numerous replicas of popular statues, badly damaged works can often be identified. Scholars have conventionally interpreted statues that match this one in details of clothing and stance as Klio, the Muse of history.

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