Statue d'Agrippine (Musées du Capitole)

Overview

The « Agrippina » of the Capitoline Museums in Rome is a seated marble portrait statue of a Roman matron in long, richly folded drapery, her head bowed in a pensive pose. It was traditionally called Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus and mother of Caligula, and was one of the most admired ancient statues in nineteenth-century Rome (the project's reader footnote at 062.0752 says « the Elder or the Younger »). The identification is questionable: the Commons caption of the photograph used here records « Agrippina (rectius, Helena of Constantinople) » and the sitter has also been discussed as Agrippina the Younger. This entry therefore does not choose between them. (Source: Commons captions of the photographs used; no museum catalogue was consulted.)

Marie and the statue

Marie first admires the statue in Rome: on 3 February 1876, at the Capitol (the entry says «je vais au Capitole avec Lola, Dina et Domenica»), she writes that she looks at the most naked statues without any ulterior thought and «Je ne me lasserais jamais d'admirer Agrippine, elle a un menton bien prononcé et potelé, un nez admirable de forme et d'expression et une petite bouche un peu pincée qui me ravissent. D'ailleurs Néron lui ressemble tout à fait de profil. Cette expression cruelle me plaît» (053.0355; Mon Journal t.5 index «Agrippine (femme romaine), 323»). After that the statue matters in the diary mainly as the model for a dress. On 27 June 1876 Marie dresses in « une robe de laine extra-fine, toute flottante, toute drapée, comme celle de la statue d'Agrippine du Capitole » but passes her arms through slits in two blankets so that the sleeves hang loose; she tops it with a hat, then drapes a fold over her head and poses seated on a rock for the photographer Bienmüller: « Une robe d'Agrippine, un voile à la religieuse... émancipée, des talons Louis XV » (062.0752, 062.0753, with a reader footnote). The « robe Agrippine » was a success at home on 24 October 1876 (067.0291), and on 1 November 1876 she dresses « en Béatrice ou en Agrippine » for an evening with Paul and Pacha (067.0490).