Ancient Roman Marble Relief with the Goddess Diana - 190 mm

"Marble Relief with the Goddess Diana

Culture / Period: Ancient Roman
Date / Period: 1st - 3rd Century A.D.
Material: Marble
Dimensions: 190 x 100 x 23 mm
Condition: Good condition, with surface wear and minor losses consistent with age; fragmentary as preserved

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Provenance information:
Object Registration ID: 65

The current owner purchased this marble relief with the goddess Diana from a private collector, Hans L., in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The previous owner, a private collector from Eindhoven, stated that the object had been in his collection since the 1990s. According to the previous owner, the object had previously been in a private collection in the Netherlands since the 1970s. No further information concerning the earlier ownership history of the object was available from the previous owner.

Background Information:
This marble relief fragment depicts a standing female figure identified as Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, wilderness, and protector of animals. She is shown holding a bow and an arrow, attributes that clearly associate her with hunting. At her side appears a dog, reinforcing her role as a huntress and her close connection to nature. The figure is rendered wearing a short tunic suitable for movement, a typical iconographic feature of Diana in Roman art.

Diana was widely venerated throughout the Roman Empire and held an important place in both public and private religious life. She was associated not only with hunting but also with the moon, fertility, and protection, particularly of women and the natural world. Representations of Diana were common in a variety of contexts, including temples, shrines, villas, and garden settings, where such reliefs could serve both decorative and devotional purposes.

Marble reliefs of this type were produced within established sculptural workshops using standardised iconography. Craftsmen combined traditional Greek artistic influences with Roman stylistic preferences, creating recognisable and meaningful depictions of deities. Such objects were distributed across the Roman world, reflecting shared religious imagery and cultural continuity throughout the Empire.

In daily life, reliefs like this could function as part of architectural decoration or as smaller devotional pieces placed in domestic or semi-public settings. They reflect the integration of religion into everyday surroundings, where visual representations of deities reinforced belief and identity.

This piece provides a direct and physical link to the Roman world, where such images of Diana were part of religious expression and daily life. It forms a tangible connection to the people of antiquity, for whom the presence of the divine was expressed through objects of this kind."