1st c. statue of Agrippina the Elder restored

A larger than life-sized statue of Agrippina the Elder, niece of Emperor Augustus. discovered at the ancient city of Veleia in Emilia Romagna, northern Italy centuries ago, has been restored and is back on display with 11 members of her family at the Archaeological Museum of Parma.

Conservators from the Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta in Parma had to clean the surface of years of grime and carefully remove thick layers of wax and varnish used in previous interventions. The layers had oxidized, darkening the statue and obscuring the details of the fine sculpture. The restoration illuminated Agrippina’s face, and archaeologists were able to see for the first time that the head was made of a block of pure white marble, unlike the rest of the statue which was made from veined marble.

The statue was one of a group of 12 portraits of members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty placed on a long podium next to a wall in the basilica of Veleia. They were discovered when the site was excavated by order of Duke Philip of Bourbon starting in 1760. The statues were one of the earliest discoveries in the initial Bourbonic excavation of Veleia. They underscore the city’s close ties to the imperial family, doubtless tightened by its patron, Lucius Calpurnius Piso who had been Julius Caesar’s brother-in-law. Piso’s portrait is one of the 12 Julio-Claudian sculptures and he is believed to have commissioned the group.

The statues were created in three stages. The first group made during the reign of Tiberius included the portraits of Augustus, his wife Livia, her son and his heir Tiberius and Tiberius’ brother Drusus the Elder and nephew Drusus the Younger. The statue of Piso was also in this first group. The second consisted of a portrait of Caligula, his sister Drusilla and mother Agrippina the Elder. After Caligula’s assassination and damnatio memoriae, the head of his portrait would be replaced with a portrait of Claudius, a substitution seen frequently in imperial statuary. That head of Claudius was created in the third phase, along with the portrait of Agrippina the Younger, Claudius’ wife, and her son Nero, then still a child.

* This article was originally published here