In the collection of the National Museum of Rome there is an extraordinary marble block with a relief of a half-naked woman rising with the help of two attendants whose heads and shoulders, regrettably, have been broken off
This monument of the 5th century BC is usually called the Ludovisi Throne, on account of its characteristic shape, reminiscent of the base of a throne, and after the Ludovisi family, during the building of whose villa the marble was found. The base of a throne, a temple parapet, part of a staircase or the frame of an altar: questions arise not only about the purpose of the stone block but about its origin. Nor is it entirely clear who is depicted on the front panel.
When I first saw this bas-relief, for some reason I thought at once that it was the birth of Aphrodite: the skirts of the attendants look wet, and the central figure undoubtedly personifies the goddess. The photograph does not convey it, but the stone has an unusual grainy, glittering structure, and this only heightens the solemnity and importance of the subject. Many scholars insist that it is indeed Aphrodite, a version reinforced by the reliefs on the side panels, where a wholly naked girl playing the flute and a matron wrapped in a cloak are shown, as if two hypostases of the goddess.
On the other hand, the iconographic uniqueness of the monument casts doubt not only on its association with Aphrodite but on the very origin of the throne. Among the probable heroines of the façade, researchers name Hera bathing in the waters of rejuvenation, Pandora and Persephone, the last version being treated by the museum itself as the second principal one. The goddess here may be rising not from water, to which only the wet skirts and the pebbles point, but from the womb of the earth, whence Persephone emerged once a year, beginning the endless cycle of the seasons.
However that may be, the Ludovisi Throne looks simply stunning.
