Roman Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of New York: MERCURIO (Gift of the Hearst Foundation, 1956) -- From a Roman villa. Excavated in Rome.

Speranza

Marble statue of MERCURIO
Roman copy of work attributed to Polykleitos
Period: Imperial
Date: 1st or 2nd century A.D.
Culture: Roman
Medium: Marble, Pentellic
Dimensions:
Overall: 181 x 74.9 x 59.7 cm
Classification: Stone Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of the Hearst Foundation, 1956
Accession Number: 56.234.15
This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 162

The left hand, tip of nose, and tips of some fingers of the right hand are restored.

Roman after Classical Greek original.

Copy or adaptation of a Greek statue of the late 5th or early 4th century B.C.

The MERCURIO is almost intact, although the surface was strongly cleaned as was the custom in the eighteenth century.

During that period, the newly excavated ancient sculpture was cleaned and restored in a workshop in Roma before being sold to members of the European nobility.

This work was acquired by the English statesman William Fitzmaurice, second earl of Shelburne, who assembled a distinguished collection of antiquities at Lansdowne House in London.

The statue of MERCURIO once stood in a niche in the dining room at Lansdowne House, serving the same decorative function that it doubtless once served in a Roman villa of the first or second century A.D.

The dining room, designed by Robert Adam, is now at the Metropolitan Museum, where it is installed with other period rooms from England.

References:

Bothmer, D. 1958. "Roman Marble Sculptures."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16(6): pp. 187, 189.