This charming bronze statuette (full cast) represents a young draped woman in motion (the weight of her body rests on the right leg). She is dressed in a short chiton that forms thin folds and whose tails flutter on the sides, and in a himation tied around her waist, a part of which goes over her left shoulder, falls on the front and is reinserted in the fabric belt. The young woman also wears laced boots tied on the front and on top of her feet. Her hair is carefully arranged in various groups of locks (very finely incised), held by a thin band on the upper skull and gathered into a bun in the back of the head. The quiver on her back enables us to confidently identify her as the huntress goddess Artemis or Diana. She is taking an arrow from the quiver with her right hand, which suggests that she carried the bow in her left hand. This example therefore depicts a well-attested type of the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, or more precisely of the Archer in motion. The slight swaying and the folds of the garment recall a Greek work of the Classical period, but this statuette is a Roman production dated to the first centuries A.D. This small-sized figurine would have been a votive offering for a shrine or for a private lararium, that is a small domestic altar in which Romans placed statuettes of the household gods (the Lares) or of any other deities they worshipped.
Author: Roman Empire | Date: 1st century A.D., 2nd century A.D.
