Collection Highlights: Cast Gallery

The fragments of the statue in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (torso, inv. 1630) and the Aphrodisias Museum at Geyre (head and legs, inv. 87-3 and 89-3) are united in this cast. The curator and staff of the Ashmolean Cast Gallery and Tim Smare of Cliveden Conservation carried out this plaster reconstruction in 2000. The torso was found in the Hadrianic Baths adjoining the South Agora and the statue may originally have been set up there. It dates from between AD 150 and AD 250 and is based on a Hellenistic prototype. The fisherman probably once held a fishing rod in one hand and a basket of fish in the other. Genre pieces like this developed during the Hellenistic period and were popular in sculpture of the Roman Empire, and this idealized version was well suited to the grand public baths of a prosperous city like Aphrodisias. The surface of the statue was finished with a high polish. Cast Gallery inv. H35.