Marble Statue of Tyche-Fortuna restored with the Portrait head of a Woman Statue: Roman, Imperial period, 1st or 2nd century AD Head: Roman, late Flavian or early Trajanic period, AD 81-100 Late eightennth century resotrations: neack; righthand and lower cornucopia; left hand and rudder; head ancient but from another statue. During the eighteenth century newly excavated ancient sculptures were cleaned and restored in workshops in Rome before being sold to members of the European nobility. Several unrelated ancient works were often combined in order to make a complete statue. Here, the portait head of a Roman woman, her hair arranged in a style fashionable in the late first century AD, was placed on a damaged statue of a goddess known as Tyche in Greek and as Fortuna in Latin. She is recognizable by her attributes - a cornucopia and a ship's rudder - which symbolize the properity she could bestow and her power to steer and control events. The statue was acquired in the late eighteenth century by the British statesman William Fitzmaurice, second earl of Shelburne, who, as Home Secretary, oversaw the end of the Amrican War of Independence and the recognition of the United States. He assembled a distinguished collection of antiquities at Lansdowne House in London, where this statue of Tyche-Fortuna once stood in a niche in the dining room.
