Bronze Neptune from Lyon arrives in Rome

The Neptune of Lyon, one of the largest and most important bronze statues from Roman Gaul, has arrived in Rome for a one-time guest starring appearance at the Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture. The statue is in the permanent collection of the Lugdunum Musée et Théâtres Romains in Lyon, and is being loaned to the sculpture museum as part of an extraordinary exchange of ancient works between the two cities.

The statue is 4’8″ in height and stands on a round base. It was made of hollow cast bronze in a local workshop in the 3rd century A.D. It is the largest bronze statue of Neptune ever discovered in France, and one of the largest surviving bronzes from Roman Gaul.

His “wet curls” hairstyle (a cap of curls clinging close to the head as if he’d just emerged from the water) identifies him as Neptune rather than another wavy-haired bearded deity like Zeus. While the objects he was holding in his hands were lost, the position of his hands compared to other statues suggest he originally held a trident in his left hand and a dolphin in his right.

The bronze was discovered in the Rhône river, between the Hôtel-Dieu bridge and the Guillotière bridge in 1859. The large size of the statue indicate it was publicly placed in a temple by the river, perhaps erected by the “renunclarii,” the guild of boatmen who dedicated a marble statue of Neptune just down the Rhône at Arles. Shortly after its discovery, the statue was given to the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, at that time home to city’s archaeology collection. It was transferred to the Lugdunum Musée et Théâtres Romains, the museum dedicated to the Roman history of Lyon, after it opened in 1975.

In honor of its 50th anniversary, the museum is running a major exhibition C’est canon. L’art chez les Romains, which explores Roman attitudes towards art and artists. It brings together an unprecedented assemblage of statues, reliefs, jewelry and artifacts from other museums in France and Italy. Many of the pieces on loan from French museums have never been seen before in Lyon, and a number of masterpieces from museums in Italy have never been seen before in France.

The Giovanni Barracco Museum, part of the Rome Capital Museum System, is one of Rome’s most sparkling and least known gems. Giovanni Barracco was a Calabrian nobleman, intellectual and politician who served as member of parliament and senator for years. He was an avid collector of ancient sculpture, putting together great works of Egyptian, Assyrian, Cypriot, Etruscan, Greek and Roman art.

He was highly selective and had impeccable taste, so when he generously decided to donate his sculpture collection to the City of Rome, it consisted of 200 exceptional pieces. The city gave him a plot of land on the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele and he worked closely with the architect to design a charming Neo-Classical building with a façade designed to look like an Ionic temple to house his small but spectacular collection.

The museum opened in 1905, so it celebrated its 120th anniversary as the Lugdunum Musée et Théâtres Romains celebrated its 50th. It is now undergoing renovations, and while some spaces are unavailable, the Lyon Neptune will be the centerpiece of the ground floor gallery. The exhibition opened yesterday and will run through June 7th.

* This article was originally published here