CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D.

Emerging bud-like from a calyx of acanthus leaves, this strikingly slender male head features a high brow descending to a beaked nose. The pate is shaved save for a cylindrical lock of hair hanging tail-like at the rear, identifiable as a “cirrus in vertice” and serving the mark of a professional pugilist or pancratiast. Although fleshless to the point of emaciation, the face is remarkably expressive, with parted lips and sunken eyes gazing wistfully ahead. The sturdy neck turns slightly to the left and the overall effect is, incongruously, one of nobility and pathos. Far from the balanced features associated with Classical beauty, the head is an example of the so-called Hellenistic “grotesque” which originated in Alexandria and heralded in a new interest in the variety of human condition with a focus on urban street-life and non-ideal physiognomies. The exaggerated musculature of professional performers was of special interest to artists, particularly in bronze (compare the Greek Bronze Acrobat in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 52.11.7, fig. 25 in S. Hemingway, How to Read Greek Sculpture). Here, the slim moulding at the bottom of the acanthus suggests the ensemble was the ornamental part of a small implement, perhaps the handle of a knife.

For the cirrus lock, see the boxer in Cleveland (inv. no. 1985.137, no. 24 in A. Kozloff and D. Mitten, eds., The Gods Delight: The Human Figure in Classical Bronze) and the steelyard weight in the form of a pugilist now in the Getty Villa (inv. no. 96.AC.186, no. 146 in M. True and K. Hamma, eds., A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleishman). For a similar small-scale bronze pugilist with non-ideal features and cirrus in the 19th century Febvre Collection, see the sketch by J.-B. Muret, Monuments antiques dessinés, recueil vol. 7, pl. no. 175. The seminal treatment of Hellenistic “grotesques” remains N. Himmelmann, Alexandria und der Realismus in der griechischen Kunst.