Two of five Appiades from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum on view in the exhibit "Buried by Vesuvius" at the Getty Villa through October 28, 2019

Two of five Appiades from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum on view in the exhibit "Buried by Vesuvius" at the Getty Villa through October 28, 2019. 

Two of five life-size statues of women were found  in the southwest colonnade of the Villa dei Papiri’s rectangular peristyle between April 1754 and October 1756.  Although they have been called priestesses, nymphs, actresses, carriers of baskets (kistophoroi), jars (kanephoroi), and water (hydrophoroi), and, more recently, Danaids, the mythical daughters of King Danaios who were condemned eternally to fill broken water jars in the Underworld, recent research suggests they are based on a famous sculptural group of the “Appiades,” mythical nymphs of the Aqua Appia, Rome’s first aqueduct. The original Appiades group, sculpted by the Greek artist Stephanos, once decorated a fountain in the forum of Julius Caesar in Rome. Given the strong association of the Villa dei Papiri with the father-in-law of Caesar, it seems plausible that the owner of the Villa commissioned his own set of these mythical figures to install alongside one of the pools of his luxurious residence.⁠



Images: One of five Appiades from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum courtesy of Allan Gluck.⠀

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