Barberini Faun

The Barberini Faun is a good example of what is sometimes called Hellenistic Rococo, on account of the flamboyance in sculptural style and subject matter.

It was found without legs and left arm. The legs were restored several times before the sculpture was moved to its present home in Munich, and there have been differing opinions about the angle of the body and the position of the legs.

There is still a lack of clarity over whether the piece is a Hellenistic original, Roman copy or a Roman creation. It may not even have originated in Rome as the marble is thought to be from an Asian source

Number

361

Material

Marble

Location of Original

Munich, Glyptothek 218

Size

2.15m

Accession

Transferred from the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1884

References

Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 330 (n.6), pl. 118.2
Lawrence: Later Greek Sculpture (1927), 21, 112, 135, pl. 34b
Bulle: Der Schöne Mensch im Altertum (1922), 127, pl. 178
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 99, no.530
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.470
Pollitt: Art in the Hellenistic Age, 134, pl. 146
Sorabella: Classical Antiquity (October 2007) 26, 2, 219-248
Haskell & Penny: Taste and the Antique (1981), 202

Date

Hellenistic (?)

Provenance

Found in the 1620s on the site of the Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome, formerly the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian

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