Description - Comments:

The inset head, the diagonally placed across the chest right arm from the biscep, the also inset left hand and the tips of the feet projecting under the long chiton are missing. The right arm was cemented on (the surface of the join is worked with the point for the use of some kind of adhesive), while the left hand was dowelled on (a circular dowel hole survives on the surface of the join; formerly the fragment inv. no. S 1180 was attributed to the statue). Small breaks and chipping are evident sporadically on the surface of the marble, especially along the edges of the folds of the garments. The surface is lightly weathered. The drill is used extensively in the rendering of the garments, especially the chiton. Two rectangular cramp holes (0,04m. x 0,02m) appear to the right and left on the rear hem of the chiton for fastening the statue onto its base. It depicts a standing (on a circular plinth) frontal female figure, which bears the weight of the body on the left leg, while the right is slightly bent and placed sideways and slightly backwards. She wears a long chiton and a wide himation that covers most of the body. It faithfully replicates the “Small Herculaneum Woman” statuary type. According to B.A. Robinson (2011, 282; see also Schowalter 2014, 174, 182-183; Brown 2018, 89-90) the figure stood on the inscribed base for Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus, found in the Peirene (inv. no. I 62). The text of the inscription is considered to have been recut during Late Antiquity on the occasion of the contemporary reconstruction of the fountain, during which the statue would have been reused with a new head, more specifically the female portrait head inv. no. S 986 (De Grazia 1973, 238-242, cat. no. 63, first quarter of the 6th c. CE; Brown 2018, 88-89, fig. 5.3). The restoration of the statue onto the base is not possible since the inscribed base inv. no. I 62 (see also B.D. Meritt, Corinth VIII.1. Greek Inscriptions, 1896-1927, Cambridge MA 1931, 64, cat. no. 86; B. Hodge Hill, Corinth I.6. The Springs. Peirene, Sacred Spring, Glauke, Princeton 1964, 102-103) on the one hand does not bear traces of the corresponding holes for the rectangular cramps on the lower back of the statue, but also on the other hand bears on both sides cuttings for the fastening of bronze statues (see Robinson 2011, 79, fig. 51). It is simpler to assume that the statue is a portrait of a prominent woman of the city of Corinth set up in the fountain during the Antonine period.

Bibliography:

F.P. Johnson, Corinth IX.1. Sculpture 1896-1923, Cambridge MA 1931, 19-20, cat. no. 9; C. De Grazia, Excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Corinth. The Roman Portraiture (PhD thesis Columbia University), New York 1973, 298-299, cat. no. 97, pl. 99 (Antonine period); H. Kruse, Römische weibliche Gewandstatuen des zweiten jahrhunderts n.Chr., Göttingen 1975, 295, no. 39; A. Alexandridis, Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses: eine Untersuchung ihrer bildlichen Darstellung von Livia bis Iulia Domna, Mainz am Rhein 2004, 245, no. 47 (Julio-Claudian period); B.A. Robinson, Histories of Peirene. A Corinthian Fountain in Three Millennia, Princeton 2011, 215, fig. 114, 282 with bibliography in note 44; D.N. Schowalter, “Regilla standing by: Reconstructed statuary and re-inscribed bases in Fourth century Corinth”, in S.J. Friesen, S.A. James, DN. Schowalter eds., Corinth in Contrast. Studies in Inequality, Leiden/Boston 2014, 174, 182-183; A.R. Brown, Corinth in Late Antiquity: A Greek, Roman and Christian City, London-New York 2018, 89-90, fig. 5.4; https://corinth.ascsa.net/id/corinth/object/s%2055?q=S%2055&t=&v=icons&sort=&s=1