Woman Wearing a Peplos, possibly Demeter or Hera, "Buried by Vesuvius" at the Getty Villa until October 28, 2019.

Woman Wearing a Peplos, possibly Demeter or Hera, "Buried by Vesuvius" at the Getty Villa until October 28, 2019.
Exploration of the Villa dei Papiri was abandoned in 1764. Its tunnels were backfilled and its precise location underground was forgotten despite the ever-growing fame of its contents. Renewed interest in the site in the 1980s led to limited excavations in the 1990s and 2000s, which brought to light a portion of the building’s atrium as well as lower levels that were unknown in the eighteenth century. Among the new discoveries were rooms with colorful mosaic floors and spectacular frescoed walls and stuccoed ceilings. Finds also included a seaside pavilion and swimming pool, where archaeologists recovered two marble sculptures and luxurious wood and ivory furniture components. These recent excavations helped clarify the chronology of the villa, which is now thought to have been built around 40 BCE, with the seaside pavilion added around 20 CE.
Reconstructed from fragments found in the seaside pavilion on April 21, 1997, this female figure wearing a peplos (Greek sleeveless dress) has been tentatively identified as either Demeter, goddess of agriculture, or Hera, queen of the gods. The drilled earlobes indicate that she originally wore earrings, and abundant remains of pigment suggest the elaborate decoration of her drapery. The painted patterns on the pillar may imitate the veins of precious imported colored marble. The figure’s identification as the goddess Demeter is based on comparison with the Demeter of Eleusis carved in 490 BCE. The head, however, is reminiscent of another well-known statue, the Hera Borghese.




Images: 3/4 torso image photographed by Mary Harrsch. Full Length image and head closeup by Allan Gluck. All photographed at the Getty Villa.

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