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Torso of Aphrodite
Possibly Hellenistic or Roman 2nd Century B.C./1st Century A.D.c. 200 B.C./150 A.D.
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: Torso of Aphrodite
- Creator: Possibly Hellenistic or Roman 2nd Century B.C./1st Century A.D.
- Date Created: c. 200 B.C./150 A.D.
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 98.1 x 42.6 x 33.4 cm (38 5/8 x 16 3/4 x 13 1/8 in.)
- Provenance: Don Marius de Zayas, Stamford, Connecticut, c. 1950, as Greek;[1] his sister-in-law, Barbara Harrison Wescott, Rosemont, New Jersey, mid-1950s;[2] gift 1969 to NGA. [1] Marius de Zayas, an artist, exhibitor, and writer on modern art, was born in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1880 and died in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1961. His work and career are discussed, with bibliography, in Douglas Hyland, _Marius de Zayas; Conjurer of Souls_ [exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Center for Inter-American Relations, New York] (Lawrence, Kansas, 1981). He donated seven ancient sculptures to the Museo del Prado in 1943. Literature on the donation unaccountably describes him as a diplomat who served in the Middle East. See A. Garcia y Bellido, "La Escultura Clasica del `Legado Zayas' en el Museo del Prado," _Archivo Español de Arqueologia_ 25 (1952), 87-102, with a date of 1943 for the donation; Elias Tormo y Monzo, _Museo del Prado; catalogo de las esculteras I: la Sala de las Musas_ (Madrid, 1949), 58-59; Antonio Blanco, _Museo del Prado, catalogo de la escultura_ (Madrid, 1957), 8, 135-136, with a date of 1944 for the Zayas donations. Information on de Zayas from his son Rodrigo de Zayas and Lloyd B. Wescott. Rodrigo de Zayas indicated (letters, 25 February and 17 March 1986, in NGA curatorial files) that the present sculpture, although probably bought in New York, may have been acquired through a Greek dealer named Jeladakis who was active in Paris. Dietrich von Bothmer has kindly pointed out that a public sale of the antiquities of a dealer named Geladakis was held in Paris on 20 May 1904 and Carlos Picon has pointed to various listings for Geladakis in Paris in John Davidson Beazley, _Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters_, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1963), 3: 1885. Marius de Zayas referred to the torso now in Washington as "Greek" rather than "Hellenistic," according to Rodrigo de Zayas (letter, 17 March 1986). [2] Rodrigo de Zayas, letter, 25 February 1986.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: marble
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