Furietti Centaurs

The Old Centaur
(Capitoline Museum)

The Young Centaur

The Furietti Centaurs (known as the Old Centaur and Young Centaur, or Older Centaur and Younger Centaur, when being treated separately) are a pair of Hellenistic or Roman statues in grey-black marble from Laconia (Greece) sculptures of centaurs based on Hellenistic models. One is a mature, bearded centaur, with a pained expression, and the other is a young smiling centaur with his arm raised. The amorini are missing that once rode the backs of these centaurs, which are the outstanding examples of a group of sculptures varying the motif.^[1]

The strongly contrasted moods were intended to remind the Roman viewer of the soul troubled in pain with love or uplifted in joy, themes of Plato's Phaedrus and Hellenistic poetry.^[2]

^ M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, rev. ed. (New York, 1961) figs. 581 and 583. The amorino survives on the Louvre centaur.
^ Van de Grift, "Tears and Revel: The Allegory of the Berthouville Centaur Scyphi" American Journal of Archaeology 88 (July 1984:377-88) esp. pp. 383, where he gives several literary instances in the context of the Furietti centaurs, notably Posidippus, who complains in a poem of the Palatine Anthology of the power of love that drives him alternately "to tears and revel", and Roman references to the paradoxical nature of watered and unwatered wine, which espouse temperance and moderation.

[1] M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, rev. ed. (New York, 1961) figs. 581 and 583. The amorino survives on the Louvre centaur.

[2] Van de Grift, "Tears and Revel: The Allegory of the Berthouville Centaur Scyphi" American Journal of Archaeology 88 (July 1984:377-88) esp. pp. 383, where he gives several literary instances in the context of the Furietti centaurs, notably Posidippus, who complains in a poem of the Palatine Anthology of the power of love that drives him alternately "to tears and revel", and Roman references to the paradoxical nature of watered and unwatered wine, which espouse temperance and moderation.

[1]

[2]