In ancient Greece and Rome bronze and marble sculpture adorned public places and the sanctuaries of the gods. Over the centuries anmost all the bronze statues were melted down for re-use. This one is one of the very few surviving exemples, found in Egypt.

This figure is a Roman version of a earlier Greek statue.
Polished bronze with its shiny golden colour imitated oiled, suntanned skin. Here the eyes are silvered and the irises and pupils would have been of glass or semi-precious stone. The lips and nipples were inlaid with copper to give them a pinkish hue. The sculptor added some of the locks of hair separately which gave them a three-dimensional quality.

The statue was made in several pieces using a technique known as the indirect lost wax process. They were then joined together by brazing, any imperfections were hammered out and the entire surface was polished.

Similar statues in Pompeii was holding a candelabrum, as this one may have done.

1st century BC, from Ziphteh, near ancient Athribis (modern Tell Atrib) in the Nile Delta, northern Egypt. Mimaut Collection Bronze 828, GR1849 4-1.1

5992 lo10 700.jpg