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Diana of Gabii

The Diana of Gabii is a statue of a woman in drapery which probably represents the goddess Artemis and is traditionally attributed to the sculptor Praxiteles. It became part of the Borghese collection and is now conserved in the Louvre with the inventory number Ma 529.

Diana of Gabii

Ma 529

sculpture

marble

165 cm (65 in)

Louvre, Paris

1807

History[edit]

The statue was discovered in 1792 by Gavin Hamilton on the property of the Prince Borghese at Gabii, not far from Rome[1] It was immediately added to the prince's collections. In 1807, suffering from financial difficulties, the Prince was forced to sell the statue to Napoleon and it was on display in the Louvre from 1820.[1]


The statue became very popular in the 19th century; a plaster cast was placed in the Athenaeum Club, London, a marble copy was among the copies of ancient statues produced to decorate the Louvre's central court,[1] and a cast iron replica decorated a fountain in the village of Grancey-le-Château-Neuvelle in the Côte-d'Or. In addition, replicas of reduced size in terracotta or porcelain were manufactured and sold for art enthusiasts.[1]

Aileen Ajootian, « Praxiteles », Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture (edited by & Jerome J. Pollitt), Cambridge University Press, 1998 (1st edition 1996) (ISBN 0-521-65738-5), pp. 124–126.

Olga Palagia

Francis Haskell & Nicholas Penny, "Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900," Bibliothèque d'archéologie, 1981 ( 2-01-011642-9), no 101, pp. 218–219.

ISBN

« Praxitèle après Praxitèle », in Praxitèle, catalogue of the Louvre exhibition, 23 March-18 June 2007, éditions du Louvre & Somogy, 2007 (ISBN 978-2-35031-111-1), no. 73, pp. 312–314.

Jean-Luc Martinez

Fourth-Century Styles in Greek Sculpture, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1997 (ISBN 0-299-15470-X), p. 329.

Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway

La Sculpture grecque, vol. II : La période classique, Manuels d'art et d'archéologie antiques, Picard, 1999 (ISBN 2-7084-0506-3), p. 262.

Claude Rolley