This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience.
Find out more on how we use cookies in our privacy policy.

 
Enter
Monumentum

Tauroctony sculpture of Villa Borghese

This sculpture of Mithras killing the bull the belongs to the Louvre museum is currently exposed in Varsovia.
  • Sculpture of Mithras as a bullkiller from Villa Borgese

    Sculpture of Mithras as a bullkiller from Villa Borgese
    Musée du Louvre / Maurice et Pierre Chuzeville 

  • Sculpture of Mithras as a bullkiller from Villa Borgese

    Sculpture of Mithras as a bullkiller from Villa Borgese
    Musée du Louvre 

 
The New Mithraeum
24 Oct 2023

The full article is reserved for our members.

Log in or create a free account to access the entire site.

White marble statue (H. 1.25 Br. 1.33). At first in Rome, Villa Borghese, afterwards in the gardens of Fontainebleau, nowadays Paris, Louvre (cf. Inv. manuscript Louvre, No. 991).

Turre, Mon. Vet. Ant., 159; Clarac, Mus. Sculpt., IV, 27 and Pl. 558B No. 1194; Zoega, Abh., 148 No. 3; MMM II 482 No. 58bis and fig. 415; RRS I, 295, 5. See fig. 163.

Mithras, slaying the bull. The dog licks the blood from the wound; the serpent creeps over the ground; the scorpion at the testicles; the raven got lost together with the flying cloak. The back of the statue is roughly worked.

Restorations: Mi…