Statue of Jupiter (Marbury Hall Zeus)

Portrayed as a mature bearded man, Zeus sits enthroned in his role as king of the gods. Originally he would have held his attributes: a scepter and a thunderbolt. The colossal god towers over his mortal observers.

This Roman statue dates to the first century A.D., but certain stylistic features in the carving, especially in the face and hair, reveal that it reproduces an earlier, Hellenistic Greek statue. Its model was a statue made by a school of sculptors based in the city of Pergamon in the 100s B.C.

Documented in the 1570s at Tivoli near Rome, the statue once decorated the gardens of the Villa d'Este. It is named for having once been in the collection at Marbury Hall in England.