Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art
A LATE ROMAN MARBLE CLIPEUS BUST OF ASKLEPIOS, LATE 4TH CENTURY A.D.
Auction Closed
July 2, 04:42 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A LATE ROMAN MARBLE CLIPEUS BUST OF ASKLEPIOS, LATE 4TH CENTURY A.D.
wearing a mantle falling from his left shoulder and leaving his chest bare, his face with full beard and almond-shaped eyes with incised irises and drilled crescentic pupils, his long centrally parted hair bound in a fillet once added separately, falling in symmetrical voluted locks over the high forehead and in long deeply-drilled curls over the temples and neck, the top of the head roughly carved, a serpent carved in relief above his right shoulder; nose and left half of moustache restored.
Height 51 cm.; diameter 45 cm.; height of head 24 cm.
Jean Mikas, Paris, acquired on the Paris art market in the 1930s
Georges N. Krimitsas, Antiquités, 86, rue de l'Université, Paris, inherited from the above in the 1950s
acquired by the present owner from the above in 1998
The only other known tondo of Asklepios with serpent in the background was found on the grounds of a late 3rd Century Roman villa at Chiragan, France, together with a similar tondo depicting Hygieia (M. Bergmann, Chiragan, Aphrodisias, Konstantinopel. Zur mythologischen Skulptur der Spätantike, 1999, p. 33, pl. 6,1. 38,4; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/203457; https://saintraymond.toulouse.fr/Medaillons-d-Hygie-et-Esculape_a111.html).
The style of the present tondo alone suggests a date in the late antique period; cf. the bust sold at Sotheby’s, London, June 13th, 2016, no. 18. A similar late antique bearded head is in Florence: V. Saladino, ed., Le antichità di Palazzo Medici Riccardi, vol. 2, 2000, p. 207f., no. 73, pl. 84. For the attribute of the snake cf. the scroll on the 4th-century Menander tondo in Cambridge, Massachusetts: C. Vorster, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, vol. 127/28, 2012/13, p. 452, fig. 42 (https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/287968).