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



Although it was carved in a Roman workshop in the first century A.D., the inspiration for this image of Jupiter was a Greek sculpture of the 430s B.C., the monumental gold and ivory statue of Zeus created by the sculptor Pheidias (active 470-420 B.C.) for Zeus's temple at Olympia. Pheidias's Zeus was renowned in antiquity; as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, many ancient writers praised it and numerous sculptors copied it.