Modern Copy of a Bronze Statue of a Woman from Herculaneum in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, November 2009

Bronze Statue of a Woman
Modern copy of a Roman original of the 2nd-1st centuries BC
# MS3520

Like the two bronze figures in the outer lobby, this sculpture is a modern copy of one of the so-called dancers that flanked a long narrow pool in the center of a square courtyard in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, on the Bay of Naples, in Southern Italy. The villa, which gets its modern nickname from the hundreds of papyrus book rolls found there, belonged to a wealthy and cultured Roman, and the villa's courtyards are decorated with an elaborate sculptural program that expresses the sophisticated taste and interests of its owner.

Text from the U. Penn. Museum label.