Statuette of Spes

Statuette of a standing female, carved in an archaistic manner. She strides forward while she graps her lower skirt and bends the right arm to hold a flower. In her representation the statuette follows the conventional type of Spes characterised for her modesty. In this variation Spes advances her left leg rather than the right and her skirt is connected with the forward leg. The vertical folds of the mantle are rather flat and would be sharper if they were archaic. Spes, was a Roman Goddess, associated with hope and of the early Imperial era, despite the archaic features of this statue. The cult developed from the 3rd century BC but its visual records are later ones. The statuette may have been used in a private context of a villa or a garden. Spes was a type well recognised by 18th century collectors, Thomas Hope had restored Hope Dionysius with a similar figure of Spes.