The amazing Vatican Museum

Ok. I am a bad tourist. I admit it... I don't remember by whom, of whom, nor the era of this statue (above). However, I do love it! It was in the octagonal courtyard just before the Map Room in the Vatican Museums

     This statue is of Cleopatra (my touristy-ness isn't a total lost cause;). You can find it in one of the first (of many) halls of statuary in this over-sized museum. My lovely companion didn't care for the rows of stone faces, figures, and fig leaves, but I adored it! 

Looking at this chiseled and ancient emotion, imagining the hands of someone's great-great-great-great-etc-great-grandfather shaping the stone into these somehow familiar faces, I feel as though the past were reachable and tangible -it is tangible!
     Ok, aside from the corny musings, I also love the way stone can look like fabric or skin in these monochrome carvings.