Boston, 23 March 2012, Art Media Agency (AMA).
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has purchased the largest ever classical sculpture in existence in the United States.
The statue portrays the Roman goddess Juno, queen of gods and the heavens, protector of women and a symbol of marriage and fertility. Measuring almost 13 feet and weighing 13,000 pounds, the statue was transfered to the museum with the help of a crane on 20 March 2012.
Identified for the first time in 1633 in the inventory of the Ludovisi collection – one of the most important Roman antiquities and 17th century paintings collections assembled by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi – the statue remained in the collector’s villa until the 1890s (over two centuries after his death). It was purchased in 1897 by a Bostonian couple, Charles Franklin and his wife Mary Pratt Sprague. The statue had crossed the Atlantic by boat, before arriving in the family garden where it stayed until it was sold to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts in 2011.
Following the acquisition of the statue, made possible thanks to donations by the William Francis Warden Fund and an anonymous donor, the museum begin conservation work on the piece in December 2011. Dating most likely from the Imperial Roman period, the statue has been badly damaged. There is deterioration of the nose, lips, and toes due to time and weather, while the head and the right arm were presumably broken off and reattached to the body – they may not even be the statue’s original parts.
Currently held in the George D. and Margo Behrakis wing of the museum, a wing reserved for Ancient World art, the statue will be visible to the public on 9 April. It will be placed on a large, solid base as to allow for an optimal distribution of its weight. The museum hopes to then make the statue the star piece of a gallery dedicated entirely to gods, goddesses, and heros of Greek and Roman antiquities.