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| Farnese Flora Roman marble copy of an earlier Greek work National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
During the eighteenth century two different statues thought to represent the goddess Flora shared prominence in Rome. The Farnese Flora (above) in its much-restored state had been well-known since the 1560s. The scale of the work – more than eleven feet tall – commanded attention in itself and the 'delicacy of the drapery' also became proverbial. The drawings and prints and copies below depict the goddess holding a small wreath of flowers, while the actual marble has her holding a small bouquet. "The restorations were criticized in the late eighteenth century, and awareness of them led to speculation about the statue's original identity. Winckelmann suggested Erato or Terpsichore (Muses of lyric arts) or one of the Hours, whilst Visconti revived a sixteenth-century idea that it was a personification of Hope. Tagliolini, before 1819, exchanged the statue's chaplet for a nosegay, but this did nothing to change its identity and in 1825 Finati remarked that 'Flora' was as good a name as any." This work has, in different places and at different times, been known as – Courtesan ; Dancer ; Erato ; Hope ; Hour ; Muse ; Terpsichore.
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Farnese Flora mid-17th century drawing Rijksmuseum |
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| Farnese Flora gilded-lead life-size copy 2nd half of the 17th century Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Anonymous Italian artist Farnese Flora early 18th century drawing British Museum |
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| Carlo Maratta Farnese Flora 17th century drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Jan de Bisschop Farnese Flora 1671 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Richard Dalton Farnese Flora ca. 1739-70 etching British Museum |
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| Anonymous sculptor Farnese Flora 19th century life-size stone copy Osborne House, Isle of Wight |
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| Cornelius Galle after Peter Paul Rubens Statues of Roma (left) and the Farnese Flora (right) 1608 engraving British Museum |
The second prominent Flora – the Capitoline Flora – was carved closer to life-size (below) and appeared on the Roman scene much later.
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| Capitoline Flora marble 18th century or earlier Capitoline Museum |
"This statue became popular very quickly. In December 1744, within months of its discovery, Jean-François de Troy, director of the French Academy in Rome, wrote that it was 'undeniably one of the most beautiful draped figures in Rome' and he was asked by the Pope for a cast of it in addition to the one that he was encouraged to make for the Academy. Bottari also praised the drapery with enthusiasm and pointed out that the very fact that the Flora had been found at Hadrian's Villa suggested that it must be 'by some famous master' : it was, he claimed, as worthy of esteem as the Farnese Flora, long one of the best-known statues in Rome."
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| John Cheere Capitoline Flora 1767 copy - painted plaster Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Giacomo Zoffoli Capitoline Flora 1780s copy - bronze statuette Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Today, the drapery of the Capitoline Flora, whose quality so charmed the 18th century, is the feature that causes greatest skepticism. "The Flora is cataloged in Helbig as being possibly an eighteenth-century pastiche of an antique statue, or, if not, one whose drapery has been so reworked in the Baroque period as to make a convincing attribution impossible." Haskell and Panny stop in their book just short of declaring that this statue (still on public display) was probably a complete fake, concocted to appeal to the booming 18th-century antiquities market. The Capitoline Flora has also been called Sabina and Polyhymnia.
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| Antoine Lafréry, publisher Seated statue of Roma flanked by captives 1549 engraving British Museum |
The statues in the engraving above stood for two hundred years in the sculpture garden of the Cesi family. In 1719 they were purchased by the Pope and placed in the Capitoline Museum. What became famous about these Cesi marbles was the sculpted relief panel set into the pedestal supporting Roma. This female mourner attracted no special attention until the 18th century. It was singled out by an influential guidebook in the 1720s as 'incomparable' – after that, it quickly came into vogue. "It appears in oval and round tablets and on intaglios of different sizes made by Wedgwood; it was also copied by Marchant on an intaglio, and by Tommaso Righi in the small stucco reliefs in the Room of Phaeton in the Villa Borghese, and by a Berlin jeweler in cast iron set in gold for a necklace of about 1810. In the late eighteenth century Coade's artificial stone factory supplied medallions of the figure, either as a pair with medallions of a kneeling St. Agnes or incorporated into the design of church monuments. Both Thomas Banks and Richard Hayward borrowed the figure for church monuments in marble at the same date. By 1815 the situation that had prevailed two and a half centuries earlier had been entirely reversed and a popular guidebook could repeat that 'the Colossal figure of Roma Triumphans ... is quite eclipsed by the inimitable beauty of a weeping province carved on its pedestal'. However, the relief attracted less notice in the nineteenth century." The relief of Weeping Dacia was sometimes known as Germania ; Conquered Province ; Weeping Province ; and Woman Weeping.
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| Sir William Chambers Weeping Dacia mid-18th century drawing Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Gian Paolo Panini Ancient Rome 1757 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art |
In 1757 Gian Paolo Panini made a fantasy-painting that collected the masterpieces of ancient Rome in one space. And in that space was included the Weeping Dacia. It is at center left in the foreground, along the bottom edge.
Quoted passages are from Taste and the Antique by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny (Yale University Press, 1981).