Change of Gender in Ancient Sculpture

Abstract

The point of departure for this contribution is the large group of Roman sculptures that more or less faithfully reproduce a Greek original in form but alter its content, known as transformations. Just how much latitude sculptors had in the ambivalent use of statue types from Classical and Hellenistic times is illustrated by a few extreme cases in which not only the attributes and the attire of the original were changed, but even the gender was, too. These creations came about, it appears, when a sculptor was confronted with the task of making statues for which nothing suitable was available in the respective repertoire of casts of Greek originals, for instance a female figure from the retinue of Bacchus or a shepherdess. If he kept to forms that were classical in the broadest sense, the sculptor could give the customer the impression that a statue, despite its unusual subject, still derived from an archetype from the heyday of Greek art. Discussion of these special transformations, furthermore, offers an opportunity to exhibit two exceptionally popular statue types of Dionysos that have remained all but unknown in research. We conclude with a look forward to the transformation of gender in statues in secondary contexts, i.e. in late and post antiquity.