Billy the Goat

Billy the Goat

In 1948, Princeton professor Ernest T. DeWald, director of the Princeton Art Museum, purchased this fragment of what was once a life-sized Roman statue of a goat in an antique shop in Rome.

DeWald was famous for being a "Monuments Man," and had been decorated by the Italian Government -- as well as by the American and British governments -- for his World War II services in safeguarding Italy’s art treasures.

While preparing an article on the acquisition, Frances Jones, DeWald's assistant, discovered a photograph and description of an identical goat's head in the catalogue of the Museo dei Conservatori in Rome. A construction worker is suspected of stealing the sculpture during World War II while the museum was reinforcing its building against Allied bombs.

Like many important Italian works of art, the goat had been placed in storage at the outbreak of the war and its subsequent disappearance had not yet been discovered. The head's disappearance was only noticed when Professor DeWald reported its presence at Princeton.

In 1952, Princeton University returned the head to Italy, calling it "one of the most popular possessions of the Princeton Art Museum." During its years at Princeton the goat was known as "Billy the Goat" and admired by students.

The Italian Government and the City of Rome gifted it back to Princeton as a gesture of friendship and an expression of gratitude for Professor DeWald's wartime service in Italy.

“I do not dare to tell you,” said Baron de Ferrariis Salzano, the Consul General of Italy, “that Billy can act as an ambassador of the ‘Grandeur that was Rome.’ … But Billy does return to Princeton as a gift from my Government and from the City of Rome with a message of gratitude … for what the Americans, under the leadership of a man from Princeton, did even in the stress of battle to preserve the works of art of our common heritage.”

The head remains in Princeton today.

1

Sculpture – statues, carvings, bronzes, reliefs, figurines

Roman

Princeton University Art Museum

y1948-58

Italy

Mitchal Racine

Jason Felch

Vanessa Rousseau

Ilaria Bortot