A Roman Marble Figure of Dionysos, circa 2nd Century A.D.,...

A Roman Marble Figure of Dionysos, circa 2nd Century A.D., with 18th Century Restorations

standing with the weight on his right leg, and wearing a short pleated tunic and animal skin (nebris) tied with a belt around his waist and falling from his left shoulder; the base, support, feet, and lower legs restored, the arms formerly restored, the head from another ancient statue once added.
on a modern limestone base

Height as restored 134.6 cm., 53 in.
base: 66 by 68 by 55.5 cm., 26 by 26¾ by 21⅞ in.

(2)

Catalogue Note:
For a related statue of Dionysos wearing the nebris in a similar fashion see Sotheby's, New York, 20 June, 1990, lot 40, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 1990.247 (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255973). The present torso was probably restored as a figure of Artemis.

On Joseph Leeson's collecting of antique marble statuary in Rome in the mid 18th century, the original display of his marbles inside Russborough House, and their subsequent iconoclastic removal and dumping onto the grounds of the estate almost two centuries later, see Mulvin, op. cit., pp. 168-169; the author notes that they were "smashed and dumped at the back of the house". The 1986 Phillips auction catalogue adds that they were "excavated from the bed of a lake" (p. 33).

For a figure of Aphrodite (of Venus Genitrix type) also from Russborough House, see The Getty Museum, no. 96.AA.113 (https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104037).

Provenance:
Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown (1711-1783), Russborough House, Ireland, probably acquired in Rome on his Grand Tour circa 1751, or shortly thereafter

Joseph Leeson, 2nd Earl of Milltown (1730-1801), Russborough House, Ireland

Brice Leeson, 3rd Earl of Milltown (1735-1807), Russborough House, Ireland

Joseph Leeson, 4th Earl of Milltown (1799-1866), Russborough House, Ireland

Joseph Henry Leeson, 5th Earl of Milltown (1829-1871), Russborough House, Ireland

Edward Nugent Leeson, 6th Earl of Milltown (1835-1890), Russborough House, Ireland

Sir Edmund Russborough Turton (1857-1929), Russborough House, Ireland

Geraldine Evelyn (stanhope) Leeson, 6th Countess of Milltown (1841-1914), Russborough House, Ireland

Sir Edmund Russborough Turton (1857-1929), Russborough House, Ireland

Clementina Ponsonby Fane, Lady Turton (1859-1934), Russborough House, Ireland

Captain Denis Daly (1894-1970), acquired from the above in 1931 as part of Russborough House, Ireland, and buried by him on the grounds in the 1930s (Russborough House was sold to Sir Alfred Beit in 1952)

Patrick Teevans and Lieutenant-Colonel Michael O'Shea, exhumed by them (Phillips, London, Sculpture and Works of Art, 18 November 1986, lot 113, illus. with restored arms still extant, together with an ancient head of a goddess once associated with the torso and illus. separately)

Mehdi Mahboubian, London, by 1987

Property from the Collection of John W. Kluge sold to benefit Columbia University (Christie's, New York, 7 December 2011, lot 206, illus.)

acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Literature:
Lynda Mulvin, "The Roman sculptures at Russborough House", in: Michael McCarthy, ed., Lord Charlemont and his Circle, Dublin, 2001, pp. 170-171