Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
A FRAGMENTARY ROMAN MARBLE HEAD OF THE DIADUMENOS, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D., WITH MID 17TH CENTURY OR EARLIER RESTORATIONS
Auction Closed
December 3, 05:06 PM GMT
Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A FRAGMENTARY ROMAN MARBLE HEAD OF THE DIADUMENOS, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D., WITH MID 17TH CENTURY OR EARLIER RESTORATIONS
turned to his right, his face with full parted lips and straight nose merging into the prominent brow, his hair radiating from the crown in overlapping curls and bound in a broad fillet falling in rippling folds over the shoulders; quadrangular plinth, shoulders, ends of fillet, and back of head restored, all carved from a single block of marble.
Total height 53 cm.; height of head 26.5 cm.; height of face 17.5 cm.
European private collection, circa 17th Century (based on restorations and Dal Pozzo drawings)
French private collection, Paris, acquired in the 1980s or earlier
Sotheby's, London, June 12th, 2017, no. 22, illus.
Recorded
unpublished 1630s Italian drawings, probably by Pietro Testa (1611–1650), originally part of the Museo Cartaceo ("Paper Museum"), a collection of drawings and prints assembled by the Italian scholar Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), then in the collection of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878), sold at Philips, London, December 12th, 1990, and recorded in a photograph in the Warburg Institute Library in London
The front part of the head comes from a Roman copy of the Diadumenos by Polykleitos, a famous bronze statue from circa 430/420 B.C., known in numerous copies. For other copies see D. Kreikenbom, Bildwerke nach Polyklet, 1990, pp. 109ff., pls. 247ff. For the original and its interpretation see S. Kansteiner, et al., eds., Der Neue Overbeck, vol. 2, 2014, pp. 467ff, no. 2.