Bust Of The Goddess Hera

First half of the 19th century

Bust of the Goddess Hera

Marble, height. 56 cm

The bust that appears here depicts the queen of the Greek gods Hera, as can be seen from the polos, or the cylindrical headdress with which the goddess was usually depicted; also used by other ancient religions to represent those who were conceived as mother goddesses, it was adopted by the Greeks for the image of the goddess of marriage, marital fidelity and childbirth. The phytomorphic motif that decorates the edge of the polos is the same that we find in other examples of ancient statuary, such as that of the Ludovisi Era, preserved in Rome in the National Roman Museum, created in the 1st AD. C. The name derives from the passage in 1622 to the collection of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632), after having been found in Rome in the previous decades. We find precisely the same palmette ornament, as well as the hairstyle, the cut of the face and the features, although it has a greater expressive characterization deriving from the hinted smile and the sunnier gaze which creates a greater dialogue with the viewer than the head Ludovisi. The bust is inspired by this model which was very successful over the centuries and particularly during Neoclassicism, between the 18th and 19th centuries; the ideal beauty of this statue was praised by Wincklemann himself, who came to consider it as the most beautiful head of Juno that had ever been made. Other nineteenth-century writers and intellectuals also appreciated and exalted its splendor, such as Goethe, who kept a plaster reproduction in his Roman home comparing it to a song by Homer or Schiller, who describes it as a model of ideal beauty.The praise was followed by imitations and interpretations of the original, especially during the first half of the nineteenth century, a period in which neoclassical taste reached its peak and to which the time of creation of this marble can be traced back. At the end of the 19th century, the hypothesis was developed according to which the Ludovisi Era is actually a portrait of Antonia Minor or even of Livia, respectively niece and wife of the emperor Augustus, with the attributes of Juno but despite the chronological coincidence no other clues have been identified that allow us to connect the statue with certainty with the two women of the Julia Claudia dynasty.