ITALIAN, 19TH CENTURY, AFTER THE ANTIQUE | MONUMENTAL BUST OF ATHENA

This imposing, over-life-size bust of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, justice and war, follows the so-called Velletri type, named after a Roman 1st-century AD marble statue of the goddess found in 1797 at the Villa Velletri south of Rome (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris). Its prototype was a now-lost colossal bronze statue from the 5th century BC, and variants of the model exists in numerous, mostly over-lifesize, Roman marble copies. The present marble appears to have been based specifically on a bust of the Velletri type which was excavated in the 1770s in the ruins of a villa near the ancient city of Tusculum. It was acquired by the illustrious art collector and patron, Cardinal Alessandro Albani, and formed part of his collection until it was confiscated by French troops in 1798 and transferred to the Louvre. In 1815, the bust was purchased by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to be housed among his collection of Greek and Roman statuary in the newly constructed Glyptothek in Munich.