133. ANTINOUS BRASCHI, Italy 19th century, Grand Tour souvenir, after Antiquity.

Made in the guise of Dionysus-Osiris, sculpted carrara marble, height 58 cm, pedestal of coal mortar marble, early 20th century, height 135.5 cm PROVENANCE: Brought home from Italy around 1900 by the current owner's grandfather The model for the sculpture was found in the excavations of 1792-1793 in a area believed to have been the villa of Hadrian in Praeneste, today Palestrina. It was restored by Giovanni Pieranton and exhibited in the Palazzo Braschi in Rome until 1844, when it was acquired for the Lateran Museum and later moved to the Vatican Museums, where it is displayed today.

Antinous was the emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) favorite who drowned in the Nile waters in AD 130. and was immediately made a god by the emperor. The statue dates from the years immediately following his death and shows Antinous in a syncretism of the Dionysus-Osiris cult. On his head is a wreath of leaves and berries and a diadem which would have had a cobra (uraeus) or a lotus at the top, but which in the 19th century was replaced with a cone.