Statue of a Boy with a Pitcher

Roman art

This sinuous figure, only partially preserved, portrays a nude boy holding a tipped pitcher in his right hand. The sculpture, which was unearthed in 1830 in the Borghese family’s feud at Nomentum, has been interpreted by scholars as Ganymede or Hylas, the beautiful boy loved by Heracles and abducted by nymphs.

It is an elegant replica, datable to the first century CE, of the Hellenistic type of the water-carrying putto. The conduit in the support and the right leg indicates that it was part of a fountain.

Object details

Commentary

In 1831, Canina reported the discovery, at Mentana, of a torso ‘di eccellente lavoro’ (‘of excellent workmanship’) that he identified as a ‘giovine Bacco in atto di versare liquori da un vaso che tiene alla sua destra’ (‘young Bacchus pouring liquid from a vessel that he holds in his right hand’). According to the scholar, the sculpture decorated the suburban home of ‘qualche ricca persona’ (‘a wealthy individual’; p. 29). The Borghese family, which had owned the feud since 1632 (Pala 1976, p. 7), had hired Giuseppe Spagna to carry out the excavations in 1830. A letter written by the official Tommaso Salini to Prince Camillo Borghese on 2 December 1830 reports that the discoveries included ‘un Torso o sia una figura mancante di testa, e bracce di Buona Scoltura’ (‘a torso or rather a figure missing its head and arms of good workmanship’; b. 7458). Shortly after, Minister Evasio Gozzani drafted a report in which we can identify the sculpture: ‘un bellissimo torso di marmo pario che si suppone doveva rappresentare un Ganimede’ (‘a very fine torso in Parian marble that one imagines must have depicted a Ganymede’; b. 7458, 1830, no. 136: Moreno, Sforzini 1987, p. 368). The provenance was also confirmed by Nibby, in 1832, who identified the figure as as Ganymede or a simple putto, ‘messo ad ornamento di qualche fontana, o bagno’ (‘used to decorate a fountain or a bath’). He mentioned the sculpture in the first room (p. 65, no. 9). In 1841, the same author identified the sculpture as Hylas, Hercules’s companion, who was abducted by nymphs for his beauty (p. 914, no. 10), a theory accepted by Tomassetti in 1891 (p. 100). Describing the excavations and materials found at Mentana, Pala mentions a document in the Archivio di Stato di Roma Camerlengato that describes the boy as a ‘torso di putto marmoreo’ (‘marble torso of a putto’; ASR, Camerlengato II, tit. VI, fasc. 1219, b. 204). It was mentioned in is current location, Room V, by Venturi, who mistakenly believed that it was found in via Nomentana (1893, p. 37).

The sculpture portrays a young, nude boy holding a tipped pitcher called an oinochoe in his right hand. It is a fine copy, datable to the first century CE, of the Hellenistic type of the water-carrying putto. The soft forms and pose are also found in the Fanciullo Torlonia, which has been interpreted as Ganymede, and another statue of a boy from the Rospigliosi Collection, which is balanced in the same way (Reinach 1931, p. 475, nos. 4, 6).

The conduit in the support and right leg of the Borghese sculpture confirms that it was used in a fountain.

Giulia Ciccarello