Headless statue of togatus
Headless statue of togatus dressed in a tunic and toga exigua. The shape of the body, wrapped in the clinging toga, emerges from under the fabric; the right arm bent at the elbow comes out pulling the garment, while the hand, brought to the chest, clasps a bunch of flat creases of the balteus, stretched over the left shoulder. Under the toga, the long sinus falls in large flat folds; the right leg appears from under the fabric slightly bent, pushed sideways and with the knee protruding; the left leg bearing the weight is tensed and aligned with both the bust and the corresponding arm, which loosely rests over it, probably holding in the half closed hand a scroll. Though the lower part with the feet of the statue is missing, there remain traces of the lacinia falling in numerous lightly carved creases that were originally covering the left ankle; the lower hem has a diagonal design and goes upwards from left to right; the figure probably shod the calcei, now lost, and had a cylindrical case (capsa) laid on the right side. The structure of the body appears with small movements through the drapery of the toga, that is either stretched clinging to the limbs or gathered in tight folds. These are linear, large and flat, going, with pictorial taste, from the right knee towards the slightly tilted left hip.
The rear of the body is simply roughed out, devoid of carved shapes, most probably because it was not meant to be visible. Moreover, the general visual effect given by the sculpture is that of a sheer flattening of volumes, so much so that the statue gives the impression of a relief.
Our sculpture falls into Kleiner’s first group of togatus statues of Republican age for the presence, as a distinguishing characteristic, of a peculiar kind of “diagonal” toga, featuring creases diagonally arranged over the body from left to right. Furthermore, the presence of the toga exigua acts as an important dating element: though the exact time when it falls out of fashion is still debated, such garment nevertheless sets this togatus figure within a limited chronological horizon, which does not exceed the end of the I century BC.
Bibliographic references: O. Vessberg, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte der romischen Republik, Leipzig 1941, p.117, 190, tav.XXXII, 4; D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Group Portraiture. The Funerary Reliefs of the Late Republic and Early Empire, New York – London 1977; D.E.E. Kleiner, F.S. Kleiner, Early Togate Statuary, «Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma» 87, 1980-1981, pp.125-133;another examples in A. Giuliano (a cura di), Museo Nazionale Romano. Le sculture, I, 7, Roma 1984, pp.298-299, 387-388.