Abstract

In this article we examine the history of a Roman marble statue, attested at Palazzo Spada in the eighteenth century and currently on display in the very eclectic collection at the Bardi Foundation in Brazil. [e paper discusses which possible prototypes can be considered for the statue and its ancient but allogenic head. Consequently the history of the restorations that determined its current appearance is analyzed. Emphasizing its nature as a sculptural palimpsest on which the hands of some of the most in?uential restorers and dealers of eighteenth-century Rome have worked, we point out why it might have caught the interest of a /ne art collector like Pietro Maria Bardi.