Subject
Triangular shaped fragment of slab with a low relief depicting the upper part of a sitting man, dressed with an exomis tunic cinched at the waist by a belt; behind the right forearm we can see the left one. The severe attitude of the man is underlined by his gaze: staring and focused in front of him, with his carved pupil. The messy beard and the mustache have curls, as well as thick hair where the pileus is placed, the typical pointed hat usually worn by Ulysses. The great mastery employed let us place this relief between the end of the 2nd and the 1st century B.C.
The marble slab probably belonged to the decoration of a sepulchre of the Republican age, revealed near the Barberini tomb in 1985.
Accession number 1201222860
Pentelic marble
Height 35.2 cm; width 26.5 cm; depth 3 cm;
Late 2nd – beginning of 1st century B.C.
Placement
Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps
Credits
Ministero della Cultura
References
B. Andreae, Odysseus. Mythos und Erinnerung, Mainz am Rhein 1999, n. 168.
LIMC VI, 1, 1992, p. 966 (O. Touchedeu-Meynier).
M. De Angelis D’Ossat, Rilievo con figura di Ulisse, in Roma. Memorie dal sottosuolo, Ritrovamenti, p. 358, n. II 637.
Palazzo Altemps, Le collezioni, Roma 2011, p. 306.
