FLAVIAN PERIOD, CIRCA 69-98 A.D.

Details

A ROMAN OVER-LIFESIZED MARBLE HEAD OF HERCULES
FLAVIAN PERIOD, CIRCA 69-98 A.D.
The aged hero with his head turned to his right, wearing the skin of the Nemean lion over his head, the long pointed locks of its mane articulated on the back, with his hair arranged in thick corkscrew locks, each drilled in the center, with a thick beard of similar curling locks and a full mustache, his lips slightly parted, with a creased forehead and deep-set unarticulated eyes beneath overhanging brows
14½ in. (36.8 cm.) high

Provenance

with Henri Kamer, New York and Paris, 1966.

Brought to you by

G. Max Bernheimer

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Lot Essay

This imposing version of Hercules is based on a sculptural type created in Greece in the later 4th century B.C., today known as "The New York Herakles" after the statue from the Giustiniani Collection now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see no. 452 in Picon, et al., Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The Met's example is similarly over-lifesized, and was likely once paired with a youthful figure of the hero for display in a large public space, such as a bath complex (many of Giustiniani's marbles were found in a bath constructed during the reign of Nero near the Pantheon). For other figures of the New York Herakles see nos. 466-472 in Boardman, "Herakles," in LIMC.

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