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Lot Essay
This exquisite bronze portrait represents Ptolemy of Mauretania, the grandson of Marc Antony and Cleopatra and a client king of the Roman empire. Its identification is based on coinage from Ptolemy’s reign, as well as three marble busts, all of which were found in the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania, Caesarea (modern day Cherchell, Algeria). One of these busts (Louvre, inv. MA1887), badly damaged, shows the young king in a similar pose, with a slightly fuller face and short beard but with the same forward-combed curls of hair and simple diadem. One other cast of the present bronze is known; it was formerly in a private collection in Uppsala, Sweden, and was sold at auction in 2004 as an antiquity (Sotheby’s New York, 9 December, lot 284).
The relationship of the present bronze to the Uppsala example is unclear. At the time of its sale in 2004, the cataloguers of the latter bronze were unaware of the Abbott Guggenheim example, despite the fact that in her exhibition catalogue entry Camins specifically referred to the Uppsala bronze where she described it as ‘mistakenly considered an antiquity’ (Camins, op. cit., p. 40). It is not known on what basis Camins made this assertion and all other scholarship certainly suggests the Uppsala bronze is indeed antique. And, if the Uppsala bronze is, in fact, antique, then the present bust is based directly upon it – or another untraced example of it - because the placement even of individual locks of hair is identical between the two bronzes. The Uppsala bronze, which has been on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is presently on view at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, as part of the exhibition From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics.
At the time of the 1988 exhibition, Camins tentatively attributed the present bronze portrait to Simone Bianco, which was followed by Schwartz in 2008. The attribution seems to have been based on perceived similarities to a series of bronze busts attributed by Peter Meller to Simone Bianco in an article written in 1977 (op. cit.). However, Meller’s argument is weakened by the fact that the bronze busts he cites show significant differences from each other in design and facture, and their similarity to the signed marbles by Simone is also far from compelling. In fact, the present bronze, with its dark surface, carefully chiselled hair, silver eyes and austerely classicising truncation are all more reminiscent of the work of Pier Jacopo Bonacolsi, known as Antico because so many of his bronze statuettes and reliefs were based upon antique prototypes. His bronze bust of Augustus in the Museo Diocesano, Mantua (illustrated in Antico, op. cit., pl. 32), shows a similar treatment of the hair, along with the distinctive combination of dark blackish brown patina and silvered eyes.
Ptolemy of Mauretania was the son of Antony and Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra Selene, who married the Mauretanian king Juba II. Through Marc Antony he was related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty and so was first cousin to the emperors Germanicus and Claudius, and second cousin to Caligula and Nero. A roman citizen, he was sent to Rome and was educated at the court of his aunt, Antonia Minor. Considered to be one of the most loyal of the client kings of the empire, he would later be assassinated by his cousin Caligula while on a visit to Rome, reputedly after attracting too much attention for the opulence of his clothing.
The relationship of the present bronze to the Uppsala example is unclear. At the time of its sale in 2004, the cataloguers of the latter bronze were unaware of the Abbott Guggenheim example, despite the fact that in her exhibition catalogue entry Camins specifically referred to the Uppsala bronze where she described it as ‘mistakenly considered an antiquity’ (Camins, op. cit., p. 40). It is not known on what basis Camins made this assertion and all other scholarship certainly suggests the Uppsala bronze is indeed antique. And, if the Uppsala bronze is, in fact, antique, then the present bust is based directly upon it – or another untraced example of it - because the placement even of individual locks of hair is identical between the two bronzes. The Uppsala bronze, which has been on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is presently on view at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, as part of the exhibition From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics.
At the time of the 1988 exhibition, Camins tentatively attributed the present bronze portrait to Simone Bianco, which was followed by Schwartz in 2008. The attribution seems to have been based on perceived similarities to a series of bronze busts attributed by Peter Meller to Simone Bianco in an article written in 1977 (op. cit.). However, Meller’s argument is weakened by the fact that the bronze busts he cites show significant differences from each other in design and facture, and their similarity to the signed marbles by Simone is also far from compelling. In fact, the present bronze, with its dark surface, carefully chiselled hair, silver eyes and austerely classicising truncation are all more reminiscent of the work of Pier Jacopo Bonacolsi, known as Antico because so many of his bronze statuettes and reliefs were based upon antique prototypes. His bronze bust of Augustus in the Museo Diocesano, Mantua (illustrated in Antico, op. cit., pl. 32), shows a similar treatment of the hair, along with the distinctive combination of dark blackish brown patina and silvered eyes.
Ptolemy of Mauretania was the son of Antony and Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra Selene, who married the Mauretanian king Juba II. Through Marc Antony he was related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty and so was first cousin to the emperors Germanicus and Claudius, and second cousin to Caligula and Nero. A roman citizen, he was sent to Rome and was educated at the court of his aunt, Antonia Minor. Considered to be one of the most loyal of the client kings of the empire, he would later be assassinated by his cousin Caligula while on a visit to Rome, reputedly after attracting too much attention for the opulence of his clothing.