The Dying Seneca or Borghese Fisherman

myminifactory

This plaster cast originates from a Roman copy of the 2nd century after a Hellenistic original discovered in Rome, known as either The Dying Seneca or Borghese Fisherman. The history of the statue is not well documented, though it was mentioned in Cardinal Altemps' collection in 1599 before being acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The figure probably represents an angler, a statue type first created during the Hellenistic period. Heavily restored and placed in a blood-red basin, it was ultimately identified with Emperor Nero's tutor, Seneca, who was later ordered to kill himself for conspiring against him. The statue was famous in its time and featured as the subject of a reinterpretation of Seneca's death in Rubens' painting "The Death of Seneca". Seneca was considered one of the most important Roman writers and philosophers on the same level as Plato and Aristotle, so there was an expectation that many statues of him would have existed in ancient Rome. The legs of this statue end abruptly at mid-thigh, probably to represent a man standing in water - Seneca took his own life in a bathtub. This identification has since been disputed, as a double Herma of Seneca and Socrates was discovered in 1813, suggesting that this statue was not of the Stoic philosopher. It is now commonly known as the Old Fisherman or Borghese Fisherman. The scan was produced in collaboration between The Statens Museum for Kunst and Scan the World for the SMK-Open project. Every model produced from this initiative is available under an open source license. Scanner - Artec Eva