Villa gardens and peristyles (courtyards) were filled with images of Dionysos and woodland creatures from his entourage. Pan, the goat god, appears here in his usual form as a shaggy-haired, bearded man with the legs, horns, and tail of a goat. His back is bent under the weight of a vessel or wineskin once held on his left shoulder. The statue was probably designed as part of a fountain complex with water gushing from the now-missing container.
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Title:Marble statue of Pan
Period:Imperial
Date:1st century CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Marble
Dimensions:H. 26 5/8 in. (67.6 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:The Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1992
Accession Number:1992.11.71
19th and early 20th century, European private collection and market; [late 1970s, London market]; [until 1982, with Robin Symes]; 1982, purchased by Mrs. Barbara Johnson through Sotheby’s New York; 1982-1992, collection of Mrs. Barbara Johnson, Princeton, New Jersey; acquired in December 1992, purchased through Sotheby's, New York.
Sotheby's, New York. 1982. Fine Classical, Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities. May 20, 1982. lot 142.
Sotheby's, New York. 1992. Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Western Asiatic Antiquities. December 17, 1992. lot 72.
Jeromack, Paul. 1992. "The Rising Market for Trouble-Free Antiquities." The Art Newspaper, Section 2.
Mertens, Joan R. and Carlos A. Picón. 1993. "Acquisitions in Focus I: Greek and Roman Antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum." Apollo, 138: pp. 40–44, fig. 6.
von Bothmer, Dietrich, Carlos A. Picón, Joan R. Mertens, and Elizabeth J. Milleker. 1993. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection 1992–1993." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 51(2): p. 15.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1993. "One Hundred Twenty-third Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1992 through June 30, 1993." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 123: p. 29.
Marquardt, Nathalie. 1995. Pan in der Hellenistischen und Kaiserzeitlichen Plastik. pp. 266–7, pl. 26.4, Bonn: Habelt.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2000. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West no. 32, pp. 51, 206, New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 434, pp. 373, 490, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 49, p. 145, New York: Scala Publishers.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
