The terracotta head representing the god Hades currently at the Getty Villa will be returned to Sicily, its original location. The Getty Museum acquired the sculpture, dating to about 400’300 B.C., in 1985. The decision to transfer this head is based on the discovery of four terracotta fragments found near Morgantina in Sicily, similar in style and medium to the Getty head. These fragments indicate that the original location of the head was the site of a sanctuary of Demeter, which was clandestinely excavated in the late 1970s. According to Enrico Caruso, director of the Parco Archeologico di Morgantina, ‘Close collaboration with the Getty’s curators and conservators on the examination of the head has allowed us to give a name to the sanctuary shrine where several fragments of its curls of hair were found in 1978, as well as a name to the Getty’s anonymous sculpture. It is Hades, god of the underworld, the terracotta body of which is in the course of an extensive restoration in the Archaeological Museum in Aidone.’ The head will be transferred to the Museo Archeologico after it goes on display in the Getty-organized traveling exhibition, ‘Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome,’ that will debut at the Getty Villa on April 3.’
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
