Detail View: ADJUNCT MODULE B: ITALIAN ART: Ivory Mask of Apollo

Collection: 
ADJUNCT MODULE B: ITALIAN ART
Preferred Title: 
Ivory Mask of Apollo
Image View: 
Overall view of the life-size mask from the left side
Creator: 
probably by unknown (Roman (ancient) sculptor)
Location: 
repository: Museo Nazionale Romano (Rome, Lazio, Italy)
Location Note: 
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme; Largo di Villa Peretti, 2
GPS: 
+41.901359+12.498249
Date: 
probably 1st century BCE (creation)
Cultural Context: 
Roman (ancient)
Style Period: 
Early Imperial; Greco-Roman; Late Republican
Work Type 1: 
sculpture (visual work)
Classification: 
Sculpture and Installations
Material: 
ivory
Technique: 
carving (processes)
Measurements: 
10 in (height, aprox.; life-size)
Subjects: 
deities; mythology (Classical); Apollo (Greek deity); art theft; looting; chryselephantine
Description: 
Probably made in the 1st century BCE by a Roman workshop which recreated the refined Greek Phidian models of the 5th century BCE. It would have once been part of a chryselephantine (ivory and gold) statue. These were built around wooden frames and overlaid with the ivory and gold sheathing. Such statues were rare, and historians believe that all seventy-four of Rome's chryselephantine statues vanished when it was sacked by Alaric, chief of the barbarian Visigoths, in 410 CE. Although dozens of fragments are known to have survived, only one other life-size figure has been found in Italy (now in the Apostolic Library in the Vatican). The mask was originally discovered in 1995 by notorious tombarolo (tomb robber) Pietro Casasanta near the remains of the Baths of Claudius, north of Rome. From there it was smuggled out of Italy; it was seized from the London antiquities dealer Robin Symes in 2003 and returned to Italy. (Source: Museo Nazionale Romano; http://archeoroma.beniculturali.it/en/node/482)
Collection: 
Adjunct Module B: Italian Art
Identifier: 
7A3-R-PM-IMA-A02
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.