Rosso antico torso of a centaur

Wealthy Romans decorated their private villas and gardens with expensive marble statues that often featured juxtapositions of different colored stones or other media to create dramatic artistic effects. The figure here is carved from rosso antico, a striking red marble quarried in several locations in Greece. Cuttings at the lower back reveal that the fragment is the upper body of a centaur—a half-human half-horse creature from Greek mythology known for its wild temperament. The torso was originally attached to a horse body, likely carved in a different color marble. This centaur, one of several surviving Roman versions of a Hellenistic Greek sculpture, was probably displayed as one of a pair. Two similar centaurs in a stunning gray-black marble were found at Hadrian’s Villa near Rome.