History

The Archaic style characterized Greek art in the 6th century BCE, and is identifiable through the stiff, upright frontality of figures that are only beginning to reflect artistic attention to natural proportions and movement. Among the most common subjects of Archaic sculpture are nude figures of young men (kouroi) and heavily draped figures of young women (korai). The Hera of Samos is an early example of the kore type: she is draped in heavy, pleated materials that only allow for an impressionistic view of her body underneath. The statue takes an almost columnar form, with the lower drapery rendered as a regular cylinder flaring slightly to a circular base. The Hera of Samos follows the convention for Archaic korai, standing with her feet positioned together, one arm still at her side with her hand clutching her garment, and the other outstretched and holding an object in offering. The outstretched arm and offering are rarely preserved in excavated sculptures, and they are both missing here.

Battle acquired the cast of the Hera of Samos in 1907, as part of his campaign to increase the size of his collection and its visibility on campus. It was displayed in the galleris in both the Old and New Main Buildings, but it was shuffled briefly into storage and then into room 10 of Waggener Hall, in the Department of Classics, when the casts fell out of favor in the 1950s, after Battle's death. After the 1970s survey on the casts’ condition, the Hera of Samos underwent interventions to repair damage around the base that was substantial enough to prevent the cast from standing upright without additional supports.

The cast of the Hera of Samos was part of the Blanton’s 2004 mass acquisition of Battle’s casts from the Department of Classics, and in 2006, it was displayed in the rotunda of the museum’s new building as part of a group demonstrating the stylistic evolution of ancient Greek art. Presently, the cast stands next to the Kouros from Tenea in the Osborne Seminar Room where, given that most of the displayed collection focuses on sculpture from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the two casts provide viewers the opportunity to examine an early phase of sculptural representation of the human figure in the Greek world.