Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art

Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 21. A Roman Marble Portrait Bust of a Woman, Flavian, circa 80-100 A.D..

Property from a Swiss Private Collection

A Roman Marble Portrait Bust of a Woman, Flavian, circa 80-100 A.D.

VAT reduced rateUK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Auction Closed

December 5, 03:41 PM GMT

Estimate

150,000 - 250,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

emerging from a calyx of acanthus leaves, wearing a tunic and mantle, her hair framing the forehead in a broad mass of drilled curls with two echeloned rows of tubular ornaments, drawn back behind the ears and up from the nape of the neck into a turban of coiled braids behind the crown of the head.

Total height with socle 63.5 cm. 

Augusto Alberici (1846-1922), Rome (Catalogue de la riche collection d’antiquités classiques [...] appartenant à Mr. A. Alberici, Rome, April 5th, 1886, no. 205, illus.)

Max Lyon (1854-1925), Paris (Christie’s, London, May 18th and 25th, 1914, no. 275, illus.)

Bernard Blondeel, Antwerp

acquired from the above by the present owner at Tefaf Maastricht in March 1995

The coiffure is typical of the Flavian period. See, for instance, several portrait heads in Copenhagen: F. Johansen, Catalogue Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Roman Portraits, vol. 2, 1995, pp. 46ff., nos. 12-15. For the ornaments in the hair see a portrait head in Berlin: arachne.dainst.org/entity/1104130. 

Acanthus leaves appear on several portrait busts on the base or as a pedestal (see H. Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch, 1961). Charles Picard interpreted it as "the sign of the nascent power of plants as an allusion to and hope for rebirth"(translated from Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, vol. 82, 1958, p. 461). A female portrait bust with a pedestal of acanthus leaves was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, December 9th, 2004, no. 280 (now Atlanta, Emory University). Also see Sotheby's, New York, December 6th, 2006, no. 55 (illus.)


Augusto Alberici was a painter and art dealer. According to Ludwig Pollak, he bore a resemblance to Nero (M. Merkel Guldan, ed., Ludwig Pollak. Römische Memoiren, 1994, p. 147). 


Max Lyon was a railway and mining engineer, working in France, Brazil, and Palestine. For a summary of his activities see https://www.erste-ingenieure.ch/engineer/lyon-max/?/. The sale of his art collection was promoted in Der Cicerone, vol. 6, 1914, p. 354f.

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