CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

This fine head of Apollo is loosely modeled on the celebrated type called the Apollo Lyceus, which takes its name from the location of the original, which stood in the Athenian gymnasium known as the Lyceum. The salient features that this head shares with the type are the turn of the head to the left, although here the position is reversed, a common trait of Roman copyists, and the long wavy hair pulled back over the ears, with a central top knot (more of a braid in most examples).

The pose and location of the Apollo Lyceus are described by the 2nd century A.D. writer Lucian: “You see his statue, the figure leaning against the pillar, with the bow in his left hand; his right arm bent back above his head” (Anacharsis, 7). A number of Roman copies are preserved, all showing the god with his right forearm resting on his head (see W. Lambrinudakis, et al., “Apollon,” LIMC, vol. II, no. 39a-v). With the present example, the god’s center parted hair is secured by a broad, flat taenia. That there is no trace of the right arm once positioned over the head suggests that this head was most likely inserted into a separately-made bust rather than a full standing figure. For another Apollo head, quite close in style, also derived from the Lyceus type and similarly without evidence of the arm, see the example joined in the 18th century to a statue of Apollo Sauroktonos, pp. 110-117 in E. Angelicoussis, Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles, vol. II.

A plaster cast of this impressive head was made in 1977 and is now displayed in the Skulpturhalle Basel (Inv. no. SH 1737).