Thetis
Unknown · Second century AD
A sea nymph, half wrapped in a mantle, leans on a ship's rudder set on a base shaped like a boat, and beside her feet you can still make out the body of a sea horse, its fins, muzzle and part of the tail lost. The rudder is engraved with a dolphin and a scroll of foliage, a reminder of the water she belongs to. She is usually called Thetis, the Nereid mother of Achilles, though the type is that of a generic marine goddess. The head, right arm, right leg below the knee, left hand and one side of the rudder are modern marble, and the boat-shaped base was carved by the restorer to complete the idea of a figure gliding over the sea.
The statue was found in 1764 at Civita Lavinia, ancient Lanuvium south of Rome, in a villa of the Antonine period, which places the sculpture in the second century. It came to Paris in 1803 among the antiquities removed from Rome under Napoleon and stayed in the Louvre after the settlements of 1815.
Did You Know? The restorer turned the base into a small ship so that the nymph appears to sail across her own pedestal.
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