Thalia, Muse of Comedy
Thalia, Muse of Comedy
3D
Published 2022-11-23T13:14:51+00:00
THALIA, MUSE OF COMEDY
I-II cent. AD
Astuto Collection
Roman copy of a Hellenistic type from the Praxitelic tradition. The head is ancient but not related. Modern additions - ascribable to the restoration by Cavaceppi, in whose workshop it was purchased - are the pillar on which the figure rests, the theatre mask at her feet and the base.
Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the personification of 'Memory'), guided by Apollo, the Muses were tutelary deities of the arts and vehicles of divine inspiration. Thalia was patron of 'Comedy'. The earliest sites of the cult of the Muses can be found in the ancient Pieria region, where they were related to Orpheus and Dionysus: Orpheus himself - musician, poet and shaman, the ideal embodiment of the artist - was the son of the Thracian king Oeagrus and the muse Calliope (patron of 'Poetry').
The statue, which comes from the collections of the Salinas Museum and is currently kept in storage, here embodies the power of art, literature, and theatre, in the relationship between memory, the dimension of the sacred, truth and harmony, and also connects to the Orpheus myth.
| Date published | 23/11/2022 |
| Title | Thalia, Muse of Comedy |
| Date | I-II cent. AD |
| Medium | marble |
| Place | National archaeological museum Palermo - Antonio Salinas |