Victoria of Calvatone from the Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities, believed lost, rediscovered in St Petersburg
Press release from 12/28/2016
The sculpture "Victoria of Calvatone" from the Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities, which had been missing since the end of the war and was on display in the Altes Museum on Berlin's Museum Island until 1939, has resurfaced in Russia in the course of scientific research. This emerges from a report in the scientific journal of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which was forwarded to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in advance by colleagues at the Hermitage Museum. The report states that when the Victoria arrived at the Hermitage in 1946, it was categorised in the section for French sculpture of the XVIIth century. The Victoria had been in the museum's special depot for several years, and it was only recently that it could be identified. In the course of museum-historical research and conservation analyses, Russian specialists were able to correctly reclassify the object and publish it as a cultural asset from the Berlin museums that had been relocated due to the war.
The President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, and the Director General of the Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, have agreed to work together on the scientific analysis and restoration of the sculpture.
Parzinger thanked his Russian colleagues for their transparent research: "The Hermitage and the National Museums in Berlin have been in good professional contact for years and have successfully realised numerous joint exhibition projects, including those relating to cultural artefacts displaced as a result of the war, most recently the exhibition 'Bronze Age - Europe without Borders'. Now this scientific cooperation on the sculpture of Victoria of Calvatone will set another milestone in our excellent and trusting collaboration."
Mikhail Piotrovsky said: "The Hermitage and German museums have developed a good concept of scientific co-operation, even in sensitive areas. This cooperation will be consistently continued in the specific research project 'Victoria of Calvatone'."
The Victoria was found in 1836 near Calvatone on the border between the provinces of Cremona and Mantua (Lombardy) and was first published in 1837. In December 1841, Gustav Friedrich Waagen, director of the Gemäldegalerie, acquired it for the sculpture collection of the Königliches Museum in Berlin, where it arrived in spring 1842. In 1939, like many other objects in the museums, it was taken to the Neue Reichsmünze on Molkenmarkt for protection. It had been considered lost since the end of the war and was also published in the catalogue of losses of the Antikensammlung - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (2005). Only the removal by Russian trophy brigades was documented.
The 170 cm high gilded bronze statue "Victoria of Calvatone" is a masterpiece of the Roman imperial period that takes up and combines the composition and motifs of older works. The body is reminiscent of a dancing maenad from the Hellenistic period, while the head is more orientated towards classical forms from the 5th century BC. The inscription on the globe (CIL V 4089: VICTORIAE AUG / ANTONINI ET VERI / MARCUS SATRIUS MAIOR) indicates the dating of the work to the time of the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-169 AD), presumably to the time of the victory after the Parthian War of Lucius Verus 162-165 AD. The goddess of victory on the celestial globe symbolised these foreign policy successes of the Roman emperors.
Victoria was found in four individual parts, the head, right arm and globe were broken off, but could be easily adapted shortly after discovery. At a later date, probably after her arrival in Berlin, the missing parts - left forearm, left leg and above all the wings - were added and the plaster moulding shop of the Berlin museums produced a cast of the sculpture by 1871 at the latest.
Further information
- Documentation of the losses. Vol. V.1: Collection of antiquities: sculptures, vases, ivory and bone, gold jewellery, gems and cameos / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Berlin 2005, pp. 11-19, 21-30, 36-39
- Mitteilungen der Staatlichen Eremitage LXXIV, St. Petersburg 2016, A.V. Vilenskaya A.N. Aponasenko, pp. 106-113