Antiquities & Ethnographic Art

Provenance:

Royal-Athena Galleries, New York (Art of the Ancient World, vol. IV, no. 285), 1985.

J.F. Collection, Loveland, Ohio.

Royal-Athena Galleries, New York (Art of the Ancient World, vol. XIX, no. 58), 2008.

Private Collection, London, 2008-2013.

Bonhams, London, Antiquities, 1 May 2013, Lot 67.

Exhibited:

Ohio, Columbus, Ohio State University, 1985-1990.

New York, Hamilton, Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, 1990-2007.

Note:

Roman bronze statuettes have been found in considerable numbers throughout the Roman Empire and often with a mythological theme. Minerva, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena, is best known for the role she played in Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. In the Odyssey, she assisted the hero Odysseus on his ten year journey home to the island of Ithaca. Whenever he was in grave danger, she provided divine powers of wisdom to help him escape the most impossible of situations.

For a nearly identical example of Minerva wearing a high crested helmet, see H. Walters, Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, London, 1899, pl. 29, no. 1042.