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

The statue matters in the diary only 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).