Dionysius

Roman sculpture
Dionysius
white marble,1st century AD
The Gallery of Mirrors

The statue, whose missing parts were replaced in accordance with the standard practice of the 17th and 18th century, originally portrayed a young athlete and was transformed by the addition of the curls on the forehead, an attribute of divinity, into an image of the Greek god Dionysius. Similar alterations can be seen in the other ancient statues in the gallery, designed to bring the subjects of the sculptures into line with the overall iconographic programme of their sumptuous setting.