Lot Essay
This bust was acquired by the German dealer Dr. Lederer in February 1930 from an art dealer in Paris for 4,525 DM; he did so on the advice of Professor Blumel of the Altes Museum in Berlin who accompanied him at the time. Wilhelm Horn purchased the bust a few days later, and the identity of the portrait has been a subject of discussion ever since.
Blumel was of the opinion that it was a portrait of the young Augustus; he had a cast of a similar head of a young Augustus in the Vatican collection made for the Altes Museum. Professor Zahn, also of Berlin, was of the same opinion because of the great similarity to Augustus as a young man. The fact that juvenile portraits of Augustus existed was reported by the Roman author Suetonius in his work, The Twelve Caesars, in ch. 7 on Augustus where he refers to a bronze statue, "I once obtained a bronze statuette, representing him [Augustus] as a boy and inscribed with that name in letters of iron almost illegible from age. This I presented to the emperor [Hadrian], who cherishes it among the Lares of his bed-chamber."
A letter dated 30 June 1930 from the Director of the Museé d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva identified the portrait as Gaius or Lucius Caesar and cited a very similar portrait (acquired in Italy and from the Sarasin collection) in his own museum as a comparison (accession no. 8935, published in the Geneva Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture, 1923, no. 125, p. 92). In January 1938, Professor Kehler from Budapest visited the Horns and also pronounced it to be a portrait of Lucius.
Some more recent opinions have tended to identify the portrait as Gaius Caesar. Although now it has been postulated that the bust more likely represents Nero Iulius or Drusus Iulius, sons of Germanicus and brothers of the future emperor Caligula.
For a discussion of the bust and its identification with references, see Megow, op. cit.
Blumel was of the opinion that it was a portrait of the young Augustus; he had a cast of a similar head of a young Augustus in the Vatican collection made for the Altes Museum. Professor Zahn, also of Berlin, was of the same opinion because of the great similarity to Augustus as a young man. The fact that juvenile portraits of Augustus existed was reported by the Roman author Suetonius in his work, The Twelve Caesars, in ch. 7 on Augustus where he refers to a bronze statue, "I once obtained a bronze statuette, representing him [Augustus] as a boy and inscribed with that name in letters of iron almost illegible from age. This I presented to the emperor [Hadrian], who cherishes it among the Lares of his bed-chamber."
A letter dated 30 June 1930 from the Director of the Museé d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva identified the portrait as Gaius or Lucius Caesar and cited a very similar portrait (acquired in Italy and from the Sarasin collection) in his own museum as a comparison (accession no. 8935, published in the Geneva Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture, 1923, no. 125, p. 92). In January 1938, Professor Kehler from Budapest visited the Horns and also pronounced it to be a portrait of Lucius.
Some more recent opinions have tended to identify the portrait as Gaius Caesar. Although now it has been postulated that the bust more likely represents Nero Iulius or Drusus Iulius, sons of Germanicus and brothers of the future emperor Caligula.
For a discussion of the bust and its identification with references, see Megow, op. cit.