The Hermitage is justly proud of its collection of red-figure vases of the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (the time of the Meidias Painter, and the post-Meidias period) from the Bosporan necropoli. Also from the Bosporan Kingdom are a number of vases with figures in relief, such as a lekythos by Xenophantos, and the “Sphinx” and “Aphrodite”, two figure vessels of world renown from a necropolis near Phanagoria. They were made in the same workshop, and are remarkable for the harmony of their forms, the classical beauty of their faces, and for their polychrome colouring enhanced by restrained gilding.
The large collection of Italic vases contains examples from all periods of the development of vase painting in various areas of the Apennine Peninsula. Among the most exquisite are the bucchero vases, the Apulian kraters, and the works from Lucania and Campania, including the famous “Regina vasorum”, decorated with painted and gilt figures in relief. The artists who produced it employed the sophisticated techniques of relief work and polychrome painting that had been achieved by the fifth century B.C.
The collection of Greek and Roman sculpture comprises over a thousand pieces. Only a few are Greek originals, with the best of them, the funerary stele of Philostrata (fifth century B.C.), done under the influence of Phidias. The examples of Greek sculpture and fragments from the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods come mainly from the excavations in the area of the northern Black Sea coast. The main material for studying the sculpture of ancient Greece is provided by Roman copies giving a fair idea of the artistic qualities of originals which have generally not survived.
The nucleus of the collection is formed by copies of the works of the great Greek sculptors of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. or of masters of their circle. On the whole they provide a worthy picture of the unparalleled flowering of Greek sculpture in the Classical period. The monumental statue of Asklepios, an example of cult statuary, is by the Athenian sculptor Myron or by one of the masters of his circle. The Head of the Doryphoros (probably representation of Achilles) is a magnificent example of the style of Polykleitos, a sculptor of the Argivo-Sikyonian school. It is executed in dark basalt and is very close to its bronze prototype. An idea of the works of Phidias, the most brilliant representative of classical art, can be obtained from copies by anonymous sculptors of his circle, and from a Roman copy of a frieze depicting the Slaughter of the Niobids, based on a relief by Phidias that has not come down to us. The colossal, majestic Head of Athena may be attributed to Kresilas, so great is its stylistic affinity with his famous Portrait of Perikles.
Among the outstanding Greek sculptors of the fourth century B.C., the works of Praxiteles and Lysippos are best represented in the Hermitage. We can form an idea of Praxiteles’ artistic idiom from the copies of his famous Eros and Resting Satyr while we can learn about Lysippos from the copies of his Eros Stringing the Bow and Herakles Slaying the Lion of Nemea, one of a series of sculptures depicting the Twelve Labours of Herakles. Although the Hermitage has no works that can be directly associated with the creations of Skopas, it does possess fine copies of several sculptures which were strongly influenced by this great master and contain unmistakable features of his style. These include Herakles with the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, and Head of a Poet, one of the masterpieces of the Department.
The Museum has a small but varied collection of Hellenistic sculpture. The early stage of its development, for example, is represented by the Portrait of Menander, a copy of an original ascribed to Kephisodotos and Timarchos. The consummate skill with which it is executed ensures it a special place among the numerous copies of this portrait of the dramatist who was so popular with the Romans. Oleg Waldhauer, an authority on the art of antiquity, identified two sculptured heads as fragments of copies of the famous compositions from Pergamum, Menelaos with the Body of Patrokles and The Dying Gaul (from a series of votive sculptures of Attalus I).
The Venus of Tauris is world famous. The Roman imitator lost none of the charm of the Greek original. Hellenistic influence is also seen in Roman copies of sculptures of children, which served as funerary monuments or as offerings to temples.
The Hermitage has a superb collection of Roman portrait busts, including several works of world renown. The art of portraiture in the period from the first to the third century is illustrated by a wide range of work reflecting different stages in the development of Roman art at the time of its flowering.
The sculpture of the reign of Augustus (31 B.C. — A.D. 14) and his successors is represented by portraits of members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and by those of private persons. A comparison of these two varieties reveals the distinctive features of the official dynastic portrait whose purpose was to assert the right of the imperial family to rule and to inherit power, and to be deified as objects of the imperial cult. These features are expressed with equal clarity in the sculptures of Augustus and Liviá, and in the bust of the young Gaius Caesar. The general tendency to emulate the classical art of Greece led to a certain amount of idealization in sculpture. The Classicism of the Augustan Age did not, however, exclude verisimilitude. In the portrait of Livia, for instance, the face is carved in a broad, generalized manner, dispensing with details and signs of age, yet at the same time clearly delineating her characteristic features: the eyes set wide apart, the thin, somewhat hooked nose, and the small well-shaped mouth.
The portrait sculpture of the second half of the first century, under the Flavians (A.D. 69—96), is represented in the Hermitage only by female portraits, which nevertheless vividly reflect the new stylistic idiom — its verisimilitude, its monumentality, and its massive forms. The specific features of Flavian art are also patent in such later work as Head of a Dacian, part of a statue that is thought to have decorated an arch in the Forum of the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 98—117). While this work can hardly be considered a portrait, the exact depiction of the ethnic traits of the model and the high degree of individualization are most unusual in a decorative sculpture.
Most representative for the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117—138) are not the portraits of this emperor but a portrait of Antinous, in which the individual features of the young man’s face are idealized according to the canons of Greek art.
The Hermitage has some first-class pieces belonging to the next phase in the development of Roman portrait sculpture, the Antonine period (A.D. 138—192). The most outstanding is the head of a woman, known to scholars as The Syrian Woman. Its value lies not only in its realism and brilliant workmanship but also in the way it reveals the subject’s inner world. The Syrian Woman is one of the earliest examples of a psychological portrait in the modern sense of the term. The bust of Lucius Verus (co-ruler with Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 161 — 169) is a most interesting example of a formal portrait. The original was made с. A.D. 168 after the Roman victory over the Parthians. Among the many imitations housed in museums in various parts of the world, the Hermitage bust occupies a special place owing to the virtuosity of the technique with which the marble is sculptured, and to its fine state of preservation.