An Important Vessel from the Achaemenid Empire

Ancient Art at a Crossroads

Ancient Art at a Crossroads: An Important Vessel from the Achaemenid Empire

The Collection of the Late Ernst Boehlen

Important Medieval Works of Art from the Collection of the Late Ernst Boehlen

The Fairhaven Panels

The Fairhaven Panels: A Tour-de-Force of Nature and Artifice

Caracalla: A Rediscovered Bust, a Re-examined Rule

A Regal Maya Jade Mask

Four Reunited Marbles Formerly at Wilton House 

A Remarkable Discovery: The Hownam-Meek Astrolabe

London

Senior Director, Head of Department, Worldwide

Dr Florent Heintz

Senior Director, Head of Department, European Sculpture & Works of Art

Christopher Mason

AVP, Specialist, Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art

Alexandra Olsman

Deputy Director, Specialist, European Sculpture & Works of Art

Elisabeth Banfield

Associate Specialist, European Sculpture & Works of Art

Elena Nies

Associate Cataloguer, Ancient Sculpture & Works of Art

Finn Hardwick

Senior Vice President, Worldwide Head of Department, Old Master Sculpture & Works of Art

Margaret H Schwartz

Francesco Morroni

Director, Head of Department, European Sculpture & Works of Art

International Consultant, European Sculpture & Works of Art

Alexander Kader

International Senior Director, Senior Vice President, Ancient Sculpture & Works of Art

Richard M Keresey

International Consultant , Pre-Columbian Art, Arts of Africa, Oceania and Arts of the Americas

Stacy Goodman

Fatma Wille

Meet our Specialists

This July, Sotheby’s Ancient and European Sculpture departments are delighted to present their annual curated live auction, Master Sculpture from Four Millennia. The sale features a select group of the finest sculpture and works of art on the market ranging in date from antiquity to the 19th century, and showcasing a variety of media and techniques. The richness in diversity creates salient dialogues between sculpture and highlights the manifold traditions of creating three-dimensional imagery.

Master Sculpture from Four Millennia

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                <h5>A Rediscovered Bust</h5>

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        </div><br>Prior to its relocation to New Bond Street in preparation for its sale, the present bust of Caracalla has been kept away from public view at Brocklesby Park for at least a century. Consequently, it has not been studied in person by a scholar since Michaelis visited Brocklesby in the 1870s and published his findings in <i>Ancient Marbles in Great Britain</i> (1882). Michaelis never doubted the bust’s antiquity, but scholars since then - who have made their judgments only from images rather than in-person inspection - have designated it as a modern replica of the 18th century.<br><br>The present portrait type was indeed much copied in this period (see in particular <span class="Enhancement" data-inline>
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                <a class="Link" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RSX" target="_blank"><u>a remarkable bust</u></a>
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        </span> by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, <i>fl. </i>1750-1770, in Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum no. 94.SA.46), but a close in-person examination of the surface of the present bust reveals condition features which are consistent only with an ancient date of production; most notably root marks and calcium deposits, particularly in the curls of the beard under the chin, which put an ancient date of production beyond any doubt. Equally indicative of an ancient sculpture, in addition to its style and workmanship, are the marble restorations to the nose, edges of the drapery, and back support. Finally, more recent scholarship has shown that the bust was once in the collection of <span class="Enhancement" data-inline>
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                <a class="Link" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG60839" target="_blank"><u>Charles Townley</u>,</a>
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        </span> where it was described as ancient and originating from Naples. Townley, whose collection was to form the nucleus of the British Museum, bought it from Thomas Jenkins. Both men were eminent connoisseurs of ancient sculpture in their own right, close to the source in Jenkins' case, and probably better attuned to the authenticity of ancient marbles than we are today.<br><br>Resultantly, the presentation of the bust at auction with Sotheby’s this July represents an exciting rediscovery of an important and previously misunderstood ancient marble in Great Britain.

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                <h5>A Reexamined Reign</h5>

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        </div><br>The predominating historical sources for the rule of Caracalla are Cassius Dio and Herodian, both of whom portray the emperor in an overwhelmingly negative light. They focus on the martial elements of his character and question his fitness to rule over the empire, implying that his mother Julia Domna shouldered the administrative and domestic burden of his reign. Much of the historical reporting on Caracalla from these sources takes the form of reported gossip. Indeed, Herodias reports that rumours that Caracalla and his aforementioned mother were sexually intertwined were so rife in Alexandria that she became widely known by the name of Oedipus’ mother Jocasta.<br><br>Under the stewardship of Edward Gibbon, the preeminent Roman historian of the 18th century, this damaging idea of Caracalla survived largely unchallenged into the modern era, and Caracalla is still broadly considered second only to Nero in his cruelty and disregard for the wellbeing of his people. On this account, and informed by readings of Gibbon, Dio and Herodian, the prominent scowl of Caracalla’s principal portrait type has been interpreted as an attempt to project an image of a ruler who is physically intimidating, authoritarian, and even self-consciously tyrannical.&nbsp;<br><br>Some more recent scholarship, which has focussed on epigraphical evidence rather than the highly imbalanced ancient historical sources, has been kinder to Caracalla. This approach tends to foreground two surprisingly public-minded and magnanimous, even benevolent, acts of the emperor’s reign. One is his <i>Constitutio Antoniniana </i>or Edict of Caracalla, which declared that all free men in the Roman Empire were to be given full Roman citizenship. The other is the construction of the Baths of Caracalla, the second largest in Rome and a centre for the arts in the city as recently as July 1990, when the “Three Tenors” operatic trio began their collaboration with their iconic nighttime concert there.&nbsp;<br><br>These two instances of apparent benevolence toward the people of Rome and the empire seem to challenge the previously dominant narratives of Caracalla’s reign and personality inherited from Cassius Dio and Herodias. In this light, we can reexamine the expression of the present portrait type as an expression of care, concern and a sense of duty for the people of Rome and the wider empire.<br><br>Of a bust conceived not long after Caracalla’s reign which wears a similar expression and is also <span class="Enhancement" data-inline>
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                <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/master-sculpture-from-four-millennia-l24264/a-roman-marble-portrait-bust-of-a-man-mid-3rd"><u>offered in the present auction (lot 20)</u></a>
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        </span> the following was written by an Italian scholar in 1980: "the face is ravaged by struggles, stern and ruthful. The sitter has achieved great things, is burdened by responsibility and filled with concern about public weal. Nevertheless, his vigor and energy are unabated." (Luca Giuliani, in <i>Bilder vom Menschen in der Kunst des Abendlandes</i>, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, 1980, p. 83). Indeed, if we move past the imbalanced and rumour-laden ancient narratives of Caracalla’s rule espoused by Dio and Herodian, the same could be said of this iconic emperor’s primary portrait type, and of this remarkable bust of his likeness.